PR 4202 

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1906 



kiCAL POEMS 

OF 



ROBERT BROWNING 

A.J.GEORGE 




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COPYRIGHT DEPOSrC 



LYRICAL POEMS 

OF 

ROBERT BROWNING 



LYRICAL POEMS 



OF 



ROBERT BROWNING 



INCLUDING THOSE HEUUIRED FOR COLLEGE ENTRANCE 
EXAMINATION 

ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER, WITH 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND LITERARY NOTES 



BY 



A. J. GEORGE, Lirr.D. 

EDITOR OF "select POEMS OF ROBERT BROWNING," "POETICAL WORKS OF 

WORDSWORTH," "SHORTER POEMS OF MILTON," " SELECT POEMS OF 

BURNS," " FROM CHAUCER TO ARNOLD," ETC. 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1906 



LIBRARY of CONSGRRSS 
Two ConiP? Rpcpived 

AUG 21 »906 

Copy riii III lintry 

Cik'syf (Z HXc, No, 






Copyright, 1905, 1906, 
By a. J. George. 



All rights reserved 

Published August, 1906 



THE UNIVEnSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, V. S. A. 



TO 
THEODORE W. GORE 

A LOVER OF BOOKS OLD AND NEW 



PREFACE 

TT is now generally admitted by competent students 
^ of Browning that — as a portion of his verse is so 
far below what is characteristic of him as a poet and 
artist — such a selection from his representative work 
in each period of the evolution of his mind and art as 
will present his peculiar excellencies should be made 
accessible both to the student and general reader. In 
my volume of " Select Poems of Robert Browning " 
— from '' Pauline " to ^' Asolando " — an attempt has 
been made to reveal the principles which formed the 
mind and fashioned the art of this great teacher in 
his happiest moments and highest ideals. The poems 
are arranged in chronological order; and the notes 
are biographical and literary, relating each poem to 
the events in the author's life out of which it grew, 
and to the characteristic forms of art in his own 
career and that of his great contemporaries, Words- 
worth and Tennyson. 



viii Preface 

The reception given to this volume by schools and 
colleges has led teachers in those schools where but 
little time can be given to Browning to ask that 
his representative Lyrics, including those required for 
the college entrance examination, be given a similar 
setting. For this reason I have consented to pre- 
pare the present edition with the hope that its use 
will result in a desire to read more of the work of 
this interesting teacher of art and life. These poems 
represent him at his best in that sphere of the simple, 
sensuous, and impassioned which is common to all 
the great English poets. 

On one occasion Browning uttered this prohibition 
against those who would pry into his private life be- 
cause he happened to be a man of genius : 

" A peep through my window, if you prefer; 
But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine." 

During his life all self-respecting people honored this 
wish of his, and since his death have desired to know 
only such facts as influenced the development of his 
mind and art. In the absence of such aids we have 
had much glowing rhetoric and shrill panegyric, — 
in themselves somewhat repelling to the student 
and general reader who desired to come into close 



Preface ix 



relations with the personality of the poet. His nearest 
relatives and friends have now removed the prohibition, 
and have invited those who are interested in literary 
history to cross the threshold and sit by his fireside, 
and even listen to the sacred story of how he loved 
one only and how" that love enriched and ennobled 
his life. In the " Life and Letters of Robert Brown- 
ing," by Mrs. Sutherland Orr, '' The Letters of Robert 
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett," " Mrs. Browning's 
Letters," *' Personalia," by Edmund Gosse, Mrs. Ar- 
thur Bronson's "Browning in Venice," and " Browning 
in Asolo," " Story and his Friends," by Henry James^ 
there have been given to us those elements of perspec- 
tive necessary to a right view of works of art such as 
he created. With Mrs. Orr's " Handbook to Robert 
Browning's Works," Dr. Berdoe's "The Browning En- 
cyclopedia," Mr. Stopford Brooke's " The Poetry of 
Robert Browning," and Professor Dowden's " Robert 
Browning," there is little reason why one should be 
disturbed by the spectre of Browning's obscurity. 

The method by which the lyrics in this volume 
were selected may seem puerile to the critics of the 
inner school, but to the ordinary reader I am sure it 
will be of interest. One of my divisions in the 



Preface 



Newton High School (1906), numbering seventy- 
five pupils, after having read about one hundred of 
Browning's typical poems, " The Select Poems of 
Browning," was asked to make a list of thirty-five 
which had interested them most as poetry and which 
they would reread for the mere pleasure of reading. 
When these lists were presented more than ninety 
per cent of them had included every poem in this 
volume. 

The test which they applied was the test to which 
time subjects all forms of art — power to interest 
permanently. With such a test the critics have little 
to do, while the teacher has much. If the teacher 
conceives it to be his privilege and pleasure to intro- 
duce young minds to the typical works of a great 
author at first hand, and to lead them to an interest 
in the life and times — the soil which produced 
them — he has done much to prepare that natural 
atmosphere of the mind, free from all sophistication 
of the reasoning faculty, in which permanent standards 
of taste are attained. 

The biographical notes present the main features 
of Browning's life, and the literary notes the leading 
characteristics of his art. 



Preface xi 

It is impossible to ascertain the date of composition 

of many of Browning's poems, and therefore I have 

arranged them in the order of their first publication by 

the poet, and have placed the date of publication at 

the head of each poem. In every case the latest text 

has been given. 

A. J. G. 

Brookhne, May, 1906. 



CONTENTS 

Page 
Introduction xvii 

1835 
From "Paracelsus" 

Song: "Thus the May ne glideth" 1 

1841 

From " Pippa Passes : A Drama " 

New Year's Hymn 3 

Song: " The year 's at the spring " 3 

Song : " Give her but a least excuse to love me! " . 4 

Song : " A king lived long ago " 5 

Song : " Over-head the tree-tops meet " . . . . 7 

The Day's Close at Asolo 8 

1842 
Cavalier Tunes : 

I. Marching Along 11 

II. Give a Rouse 1- 

III. Boot and Saddle 13 

Incident of the French Camp 15 

The Pied Piper of Hamelin. A Child's Story . . 17 



xiv Contents 



1845 

Page 
" How THEY Brought the Good News from Ghent 

TO Aix" 31 

The Lost Leader 35 

lloME Thoughts, from Abroad 37 

Home Thoughts, from the Sea 39 

The Boy and the Angel 40 

1855 

Evelyn Hope 45 

Up at a Villa — Down in the City 48 

My Star 54 

Memorabilia 55 

One Word More — To E.B. B 56 

1864 
Prospice 66 

1868-69 

From "The Ring and the Book": 

O Lyric Love 68 

1876 
Hervk Kiel 70 

1879 
Pheidippides 79 



Contents xv 



1880 

Page 

MuliSykeh 90 



1889 

Epilogue to Asolando 100 

Notes 103 

References 135 



INTRODUCTION 

ENGLISH literature of the nineteenth century 
derives its distinction from, if not its superi- 
ority over, that of any preceding century, from the 
fact that it has kept close to life — its passion, its 
pathos, its power. 

The movement it has told of life, 
Its pain and pleasure, rest and strife. 

It has revealed 

The thread which binds it all in one, 
And not its separate parts alone. 

We hear much in these days of the Spirit of the 
Age, and perhaps too little of the Spirit of the Ages. 
The spirit of any age, however enlightened it may be, 
is an unsafe guide if it does not embody the best of 
what the ages have found to be true. We are con- 
stantly elevating costume above character, the tran- 
sient above the abiding, phenomena above noumena. 



xviii Introduction 



cleverness above style, method above spirit. Our 
attention in the classroom and the study is too 
often directed away from the great sources of power 
to the forms under which that power has revealed 
itself. 

A teacher of literature should present no literary 
creed to which he demands assent, nor hold a brief 
as for a client. He should try to reveal an attitude 
of mind which has been produced by reading and 
reflection, — an attitude which maybe modified by 
further reading and reflection. His position should 
be neither that of a defendant nor that of a judge, 
but that of a guide. Now, the requisites for a good 
guide are : familiarity with the ground, and a willing- 
ness to keep himself in the background and allow us 
to do our own seeing. 

When the Wordsworth Society was instituted, Mr. 
Matthew Arnold took great pains to warn its members 
against the spirit of a clique. He said : " If we are 
to get Wordsworth recognised by the public, we must 
recommend him, not in the spirit of a clique but in 
the spirit of disinterested lovers of poetry. We must 
avoid the historical estimate, and the personal esti- 
mate, and we must seek the real estimate.'' Mr. 



Introduction xix 



Stopford Brooke, not long after Browning's death, 
warned us against those "who deceive themselves 
into a belief that they enjoy poetry because they 
enjoy Browning, while they never open Milton and 
have only heard of Chaucer and Spenser." A third 
great teacher and interpreter of literature, Professor 
Dowden, has sounded the same note of warning, 
and has pointed out the only method by which we 
can arrive at a real estimate. " Our prime object," 
says he, " should be to get into living relation with a 
man, with the good forces of nature and humanity 
that play in and through him. Approach a great 
writer in the spirit of cheerful and trustful fraternity ; 
this is better than hero-worship. A great master is 
better pleased to find a brother than a worshipper or 
a serf." In keeping close to the great writers from 
Homer to Browning, we keep close to life, and if we 
thus become members of the one Catholic Apostolic 
Church of literature, it will matter little who may 
be the bishop of our particular diocese. 

Browning's early life was spent near the busy 
liaunts of men, and it was natural therefore that the 
subjects of his work should be man rather than 
nature. Wordsworth came to the love of man 



XX Introduction 



through the love of nature ; witli Browning tlie 
order is reversed, man is everywhere primary in his 
thought. 

The life and work of Browning, as with Words-- 
worth, falls naturally into three periods. The first 
period, until 1841, is that of preparation, in "Pau- 
line," "Paracelsus," and "Sordello," during which 
time he was gradually coming to a consciousness of 
his powers. " Pauline " and " Paracelsus " are as 
distinctly revelations of his inner life as is the " Pre- 
lude" of Wordsworth's. In tlie second period, 1841- 
18G8, from the publication of tiie first number of 
" Bells and Pomegranates " to the completion of 
" The Ring and the Book," he attained a full con- 
sciousness of his mission as a poet, and a full com- 
mand of thought and expression upon a greater 
variety of subjects than had been seen in any poet 
since Shakespeare ; we have studies of typical souls 
in almost every condition in life and of almost every 
form of experience, revealed in verse forms of widest 
range and of unique originality. This work is rich in 
imagination, vital in passion, and moving in melody ; 
of highest perfection and universal appeal to the 
tenderest in human feeling and noblest in human 



Introduction xxi 



thought — verily, bells for delight and pomegranates 
for sustenance of man. In the third period, 18G8- 
1889, to which he passed through '' The Ring and 
the Book," we have less of the emotional imagination 
of the poet, and more of the subtle thinking about 
origins of thought and feeling. The romantic element 
of his nature, the revolutionary spirit, and the tran- 
scendental ideals were for a time subservient to that 
passion for scientific research. As Professor Dowden 
says, " he was condemned to write with his left hand ; " 
and yet the Browningite of the narrow, exclusive, 
and sectarian school has often demanded loyalty to 
this work as a test of discipleship. Such blundering 
praise as this has done Browning more harm than all 
the blundering blame for obscurity and other faults. 
In this period master poems are infrequent, and yet 
at times the intellectual and imaginative elements 
are so fused by the vital soul of passion that the 
result is a " recapture of the first fine careless 
rapture. " 

Browning, with his first plunge into the depths 
said in *' Paracelsus," — that poem of his youth where 
may be found those fundamental truths which filled 
his life with a radiant hope in an endless future : 



xxii Introduction 



Truth is within ourselves : it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may believe : 
There is an inmost centre in us all, 
Where truth abides in fulness ; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect, clear perception — which is truth ; 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Blunts it and makes it error : and " to know " 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, 
Than in affording entry for a light 
Supposed to be without. 

Browning's fearless intellectual quest in an age of 
introspection led him at times to forsake the haunts 
of the muses and indulge in that fascinating activity 
of thinking about his thoughts, striving for a solu- 
tion of the problem of Evil. The poet w^ithin him 
languished but was restored through that communion 
between head and heart from whence genuine inspira- 
tion rises. 

" High art/' says Mr. F. W. Myers, '' is based upon 
unprovable intuitions, and of all the arts it is poetry 
whose intuitions take the brightest glow, and best 
illumine the mystery without us from the mystery 
within." This was the secret of Browning's work as 



Introduction xxiii 



a poet, — he illumines the mystery without from the 
mystery within : 

Not on the vulgar mass 

Called " work," must sentence pass, 
Things done, that took the eye and had the price ; 

O'er which, from level stand. 

The low world laid its hand, 
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice. 

This is the note sounding everywhere in Browning's 
highest poetry, the note which it was the purpose of 
the volume of Selections to reveal. It is an appeal 
to the God-consciousness in every man — " what a 
man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose." 

But all, the world's coarse thumb 
And finger failed to plumb, 



All I could never be. 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God. 

It is no easy-going moral creed that we find in — 

Progress is the law of life, man is not Man as yet. 
A principle of restlessness. 

Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all. 
Oh, if we draw a circle premature, Heedless of far gain, 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, Sure 
Bad is our bargain ! 



xxiv Introduction 



Browning's joyous, fearless activity in studying 
life; the noble aspirations of his intellect and the 
mighty passions of his heart ; his steady certainty 
that God and man are one in kind, and are working 
together in the universe ; his feeling that even hu- 
man experience has its part in fashioning man for 
his place in the divine order, and that it is by 
certain types of experience, called by many failures, 
that man marks his ascent on the road to success, — 
make him one of the world's great teachers. 

Thus at the close of his life, having been wearied 
out with contrarieties in his intellectual quest, he re- 
turns to his first great ideal in "Paracelsus" : "God! 
Thou art Love ! I build my faith on that ! " and 
reenforces it with all the wealth of his rich ex- 
perience of years by asserting that man, too, has 
the nature of God, has the principle of divinity, 
which is the culmination of the creative process 
called evolution. This is Browning's supreme reve- 
lation. It is this which gives the element of unity to 
his great poetry, and this element is none other than 
his own noble and unique personality revealing the 
sanity of true genius. 

The message of Browning thus makes common 



Introduction xxv 



cause with that of Wordsworth and Tennyson. 
Wordsworth's highest note is — 

We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love ; 

And even as these are well and wisely fixM, 

In dignity of being we ascend. 

While that of Tennyson is — 

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove, 
That every cloud that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love. 

And Browning sings — 

My own hope is, a sun will pierce 
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched ; 
That after Last, returns the First, 
Though a wide compass round be fetched ; 
That what began best, can't end worst, 
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst. 

These surpassing spirits, in their serene faith in 
God and immortality, in their yearning for expansion 
of the subtle thing called Spirit, and their belief in 
an endless future, 

Never turn their backs, but march breast forward. 

Never doubt clouds will break, 
Never dream, though right be worsted, wrong will triumph ; 
Hold we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 

Sleep to wake. 



Lyrical Poems of Browning 

PARACELSUS 

(1835) 

SONG 

Thus the Mayne glideth 

Where my Love abideth. 

Sleep 's no softer : it proceeds 

On through lawns, on through meads, 

On and on, whate'er befall, 5 

Meandermg and musical, 

Though the niggard pasturage 

Bears not on its shaven ledge 

Aught but weeds and waving grasses 

To view the river as it passes, lo 

Save here and there a scanty patch 

Of primroses too faint to catch 

A weary bee. 

And scarce it pushes 
Its gentle way through strangling rushes 
1 



Lyrical Poems of Browning 



Where the glossy kingfisher • is 

Flutters wlien noon-heats are near, 

Glad the shelving banks to shun, 

Red and steaming in the sun, 

Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat 

Burrows, and the speckled stoat ; 20 

Where the quick sandpipers flit 

In and out the marl and grit 

That seems to breed them, brown as they : 

Naught disturbs its quiet way, 

Save some lazy stork that springs, 25 

Trailing it with legs and wings. 

Whom the shy fox from the hill 

Rouses, creep he ne'er so still. 



Pippa Passes 



PIPPA PASSES 
(1841) 
NEW YEAR'S HYMN 
All service ranks the same with God : 
If now, as formerly he trod 
Paradise, his presence fills 
Our earth, each only as God wills 
Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 5 
Are we ; there is no last nor first. 

Say not " a small event ! " Why " small " ? 
Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
A "great event," should come to pass, 
Than that ? Untwine me from the mass lo 

Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed ! 

SONG 



The year 's at the spring, 
And day ^s at the morn ; 
Morning 's at seven ; 



Lyrical Poems of Browning 



The hillside 's dew-pearled ; 
The lark 's on the wing ; 
The snail 's on the thorn : 
God 's in his heaven — 
All 's right with the world ! 



SONG 

Give her but a least excuse to love me ! 

When — where — 

How — can this arm establish her above me, 

Jf fortune fixed her as my lady there, 

There already, to eternally reprove me ? 5 

(" Hist ! " — said Kate the Queen ; 

But *' Oh ! " cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 

" 'T is only a page that carols unseen, 

Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") 

Is she wronged ? — To the rescue of her honor, lo 
My heart ! 

Is she poor ? — What costs it to be styled a donor ? 
INIercly an earth to cleave, a sea to part. 
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon 
her ! 



Pippa Passes 



(" Nay, list ! " — bade Kate the Queen ; 15 

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
" 'T is only a page that carols unseen, 
Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") 



SONG 

A king lived long ago. 

In the morning of the world, 

When earth w^as nigher heaven than now ; 

And the king's locks curled, 

Disparting o'er a forehead full 5 

As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn 

Of some sacrificial bull — 

Only calm as a babe new-born : 

For he was got to a sleepy mood, 

So safe from all decrepitude, 10 

Age with its bane so sure gone by 

(The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 

That, having lived thus long, there seemed 

No need the king should ever die. 

Among the rocks his city was : ' 15 

Before his palace, in the sun. 



Lyrical Poems of Browning 



He sat to see his people pass, 

And judge them every one 

From its threshold of smooth stone. 

They haled him many a valley-thief 20 

Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief. 

Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, 

Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 

On the sea-sand left aground ; 

And sometimes clung about his feet, 25 

With bleeding lip and burning cheek, 

A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 

Of one with sullen thickset brows : 

And sometimes from the prison-house 

The angry priests a pale wretch brought, 30 

Who through some chink had pushed and 

pressed 
On knees and elbows, belly and breast. 
Worm-like into the temple, — caught 
He was by the very god 

Who ever in the darkness strode 35 

Backward and forward, keeping watch 
O'er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catcli ! 
These, all and every one. 
The king judged, sitting in the sun. 



Pippa Passes 



His councillors, on left and right, 40 

Looked anxious up, — but no surprise 

Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes 

Where the very blue had turned to white. 

'T is said, a Python scared one day 

The breathless city, till he came, 45 

With forky tone and eyes on flame. 

Where the old king sat to judge alway ; 

But when he saw the sweepy hair 

Girt with a crown of berries rare, 

Which the god will hardly give to wear 50 

To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 

In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, 

At his wondrous forest rites, — 

Seeing this, he did not dare 

Approach that threshold in the sun, 55 

Assault the old king smiling there. 

Such grace had kings when the world begun ! 



SONG 



Over-head the tree-tops meet, 

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet ; 



8 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

There was naught above me, naught below, 

My chiklhood had not learned to know : 

For, what are the voices of birds 5 

— Ay, and of beasts, — but words, our words. 

Only so much more sweet ? 

The knowledge of that with my life begun. 

But I had so near made out the sun, 

And counted your stars, the seven and one, lo 

Like the fingers of my hand : 

Nay, I could all but understand 

Wherefore through heaven tlie white moon ranges ; 

And just when out of her soft fifty changes 

No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 15 

Suddenly God took me. 



THE DAY'S CLOSE AT ASOLO 

Oh, what a drear, dark close to my poor day ! 
How could that red sun drop in that black cloud 
Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away. 
Dispensed with, never more to be allowed ! 
Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. 
Oh lark, be day's apostle 



Pippa Passes 9 



To mavis, merle and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 

But at night, brother howlet, over the woods, lo 

Toll the world to thy chantry ; 

Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 

Full complines with gallantry : 

Then, owls and bats. 

Cowls and twats, 15 

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, 

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! 

[After she has begun to undress herself. 
Now, one thing I should like to really know : 
How near I ever might approach all these 
I only fancied being, this long day : 20 

— Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so 
As to . . . in some way . . . move them — if you 

please. 
Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
For instance, if I wind 

Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 25 

[Sitting on the bedside. 
And border Ottima's cloak's hem. 
Ah me, and my important part with them. 



10 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! 
True in some sense or other, I suppose. 

[As she lies down. 
God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 30 

No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right 

All service ranks the same with God — 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst. 
Are we ; there is no last nor first, 

[She sleeps. 



Cavalier Tunes 11 



CAVALIER TUNES 

(1842) 
I. MARCHING ALONG 

Kentish Sir Byng stood for bis King, 

Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing : 

And, pressing a troop unable to stoop 

And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop, 

Marched them along, fifty-score strong, 5 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song. 

God for King Charles ! Pym and such carles 

To the Devil that prompts 'em their treasonous paries ! 

Cavaliers, up ! Lips from the cup, 

Hands from the pasty, nor bite take, nor sup, lo 

Till you 're — 

Chorus. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this 
song! 

Hampden to hell, and his obsequies' knell 

Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry, as well ! 15 



12 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

England, good cheer ! Rupert is near ! 
Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, 
Cho. — Marching along, fifty-score strong, 

Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! 

Then, God for King Charles ! Pym and his snarls 20 
To the Devil that pricks on such pestilent carles 1 
Hold by the right, you double your might ; 
So, onward to Nottingham, fresh for the fight, 
Cho. — March we along, fifty-score strong, 24 

Great-hearted*gentlemen, singing this song ! 



II. GIVE A ROUSE 

King Charles, and who *11 do him right now ? 
King Charles, and who 's ripe for fight now ? 
Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles ! 

Who gave me the goods that went since ? 
Who raised me the house that sank once ? 
Who helped me to gold T spent since ? 
Who found me in wine you drank once ? 



Candler Times 13 



Clio. — King Charles, and who '11 do him right now? 

King Charles, and who's ripe for tight 

now ? 10 

Give a rouse : here 's, in hell 's despite now, 

King Charles ! 

To whom used my boy George quaff else, 

By the old fool's side that begot him ? 

For whom did he eheer and laugh else, is 

While Noll's daunied troopers shot him ? 

Cno. — King Charles, and who'll do him right now? 
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now? 
Give a rouse : here 's, in hell's despite now, 
King Charles ! 20 

III. BOOT AND SADDLE 
Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 
Rescue my castle before the hot day 
Brightens to blue from its silvery gray. 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! 

Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you 'd say ; 5 

Many 's the friend there, will listen and pray 
" God's luck to gallants that strike up the lay — 
Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " 



14 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Forty miles off, like a roebuck at bay, 
Flouts Castle Brancepeth the Roundheads' array : lo 
Who laughs, '* Good fellows ere this, by my fay, 
Clio. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " 

Who? My wife Gertrude ; that, honest and gay, 
Laughs when you talk of surrendering, " Nay ! 
I 've better counsellors ; what counsel they ? 15 

Cho. — Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! " 



Incident oj the French Camp 15 

INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 

(1842) 

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon : 

A mile or so away, 
On a little mound. Napoleon 

Stood on our storming-day ; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 5 

Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 

Oppressive with its mind. 

Just as perhaps he mused, '^ My plans 

That soar, to earth may fall, lo 

Let once my army-leader Lannes 

Waver at yonder wall, " — 
Out 'twixt the battery-smokes there flew 

A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping ; nor bridle drew 15 

Until he reached the mound. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy. 
And held himself erect 



16 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

By just bis horse's mane, a boy : 

You hardly could suspect — 20 

(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 

Scarce any blood came through) 
You looked twice ere you saw his breast 

Was all but shot in two. 

" Well," cried he, *' Emperor, by God's grace 25 

We 've got you Ratisbon ! 
The Marshal 's in the market-place, 

And you '11 be there anon 
To see your flag-bird flap his vans 

Where I, to heart's desire, 30 

Perched him ! " The chief's eye flashed ; his plans 

Soar'd up again like fire. 

The chiefs eye flashed ; but presently 

Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle's eye 35 

When her bruised eaglet breathes ; 
" You 're wounded ! " " Nay," the soldier's pride 

Touched to the quick, he said : 
" I 'm killed. Sire ! " And, his chief beside, 

Smiling the boy fell dead. 40 



The Pied Piper- of Hamelin 1 7 



THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 

A CHILD'S STORY 
(1842) 

Hamelin Town 's in Brunswick, 
By famous Hanover city ; 

The river Weser, deep and wide, 

Washes its wall on the southern side ; 

A pleasanter spot you never spied ; 
But, when begins my ditty, 

Almost five hundred years ago, 

To see the townsfolk suffer so 
From vermin, was a pity. 



10 



They fought the dogs and killed the cats, 

And bit the babies in the cradles, 
And ate the cheeses out of the vats, 

And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles. 
Split open the kegs of salted sprats, i5 

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, 

2 



18 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

And even spoiled the women's chats 

By drowning tlieir speaking 

Witli shrieking and squeaking. 
In fifty different sharps and flats. 20 

At last the people in a body 

To the Town Hall came flocking : 
" 'T is clear," cried they, " our INIayor 's a noddy ; 

And as for our Corporation — shocking 
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine 25 

For dolts that can't or won't determine 
What 's best to rid us of our vermin ! 
You hope, because you 're old and obese, 
To find in the furry civic robe ease ? 
Rouse up, sirs ! Give your brains a racking so 
To find the remedy we 're lacking. 
Or, sure as fiite, we '11 send you packing ! " 
At this the Mayor and Corporation 
Quaked with a mighty consternation. 

An hour they sat in council ; 35 

At length the Mayor broke silence ; 

'' For a guilder I 'd my ermine gown sell, 
I wish I were a mile hence ! 



The Pied Piper of Hamel'm 19 

It 's easy to bid one nick one's brain — 

I 'ni sure my poor head aches again, 40 

I 've scratched it so, and all in vain. 

Oh for a trap, a trap, a trap ! " 

Just as he said this, what should hap 

At the chamber-door but a gentle tap ? 

'^ Bless us," cried the INIayor, ^' what 's that ? " 45 

(With the Corporation as he sat, 

Looking little, though wondrous fat ; 

Nor brighter was his eye, nor moister, 

Than a too-long-opened oyster. 

Save when at noon his paunch grew mutinous 50 

For a plate of turtle, green and glutinous) 

" Only a scraping of shoes on the mat ? 

Anything like the sound of a rat 

Makes my heart go pit-a-pat ! " 

" Come in ! " — the Mayor cried, looking bigger : 55 

And in did come the strangest figure ! 

His queer long coat from heel to head 

Was half of yellow and half of red, 

And he himself w^as tall and thin, 

With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, go 

And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin. 



20 Lyrical Poems of Bronming 

No tuft on cheek nor beard on chin, 

But lips where smiles went out and in ; 

There was no guessing his kith and kin : 

And nobody could enough admire 65 

The tall man and his quaint attire. 

Quoth one : " It 's as my great-gran dsire, 

Starting up at the Trump of Doom's tone, 

Had walked this way from his painted tombstone ! " 

He advanced to the council-table : 70 

And, '' Please your honors," said he, " I 'm able, 

By means of a secret charm, to draw 

All creatures living beneath the sun, 

That creep or swim or fly or run. 

After me so as you never saw ! 75 

And I chiefly use my charm 

On creatures that do people harm. 

The mole and toad and newt and viper ; 

And people call me the Pied Piper." 

(And here they noticed around his neck so 

A scarf of red and yellow stripe 

To match with his coat of the self-same cheque ; 

And at the scarfs end hung a pipe ; 

And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 21 

As if impatient to be playing 85 

Upon this pipe, as low it dangled 

Over his vesture so old-fangled.) 

" Yet," said he, " poor piper as I am. 

In Tartary I freed the Cham, 

Last June, from his huge swarm of gnats ; 90 

I eased in Asia the Nizam 

Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats : 

And as for what your brain bewilders. 

If I can rid your town of rats 

Will you give me a thousand guilders ? " 95 

" One ? fifty thousand ! " — was the exclamation 

Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation. 

Into the street the Piper stept. 

Smiling first a little smile. 
As if he knew what magic slept lOO 

In his quiet pipe the while ; 
Then, like a musical adept, 
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled. 
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled, 
Like a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled ; los 

And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered, 
You heard as if an army muttered ; 



22 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

And the muttering grew to a grumbling; 
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling ; 
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling. no 
Great rats, small rats, lean rata, brawny rats, 
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats. 
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, 

Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, 
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers, 115 

Families by tens and dozens, 
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives — 
Followed the Piper for their lives. 
From street to street he piped advancing. 
And step for step they followed dancing, 120 

Until they came to the river Weser, 
Wherein all plunged and perished ! 
— Save one, who, stout as Julius Caesar, 
Swam across and lived to carry 

(As he the manuscript he cherished) 125 

To Rat-land home his commentary : 
Which was, " At the first shrill notes of the pipe, 
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, 
And putting apples, wondrous ripe. 
Into a cider-press's gripe : 130 

And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 23 

And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, 

And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, 

And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks ; 

And it seemed as if a voice 135 

(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery 

Is breathed) called out, ' Oh rats, rejoice ! 

The world is grown to one vast drysaltery ! 

So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon, 

Breakfast, supper, dinner, luncheon ! ' 140 

And just as a bulky sugar-puncheon, 

All ready staved, like a great sun shone 

Glorious scarce an inch before me. 

Just as methought it said, * Come, bore me ! ' 

— I found the Weser rolling o'er me." 145 

You should have heard the Hamelin people 

Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple. 

" Go," cried the Mayor, '* and get long poles, 

Poke out the nests and block up the holes ! 

Consult with carpenters and builders, 150 

And leave in our town not even a trace 

Of the rats ! " — when suddenly, up the face 

Of the Piper perked in the market-place, 

With a, *' First, if you please, my thousand guilders ! " 



24 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

A thousand guilders ! The Mayor looked blue ; 155 

So did the Corporation, too. 

For council dinners made rare havoc 

With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock ; 

And half the money would replenish 

Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish. 160 

To pay this sum to a wandering fellow 

With a gipsy coat of red and yellow ! 

" Beside," quoth the Mayor with a knowing wink, 

*' Our business was done at the river's brink ; 

We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, 165 

And what 's dead can't come to life, I think ; 

So, friend, we 're not the folks to shrink 

From the duty of giving you something for drink. 

And a matter of money to put in your poke ; 

But as for the guilders, what we spoke 170 

Of them, as you very well know, was in joke. 

Beside, our losses have made us thrifty : 

A thousand guilders ! Come, take fifty ! " 

The Piper's face fell, and he cried, 

'' No trifling ! I can't wait, beside ! 175 

I Ve promised to visit by dinner time 

Bagdat, and accept the prime 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 25 

Of the Head-Cook's pottage, all he 's rich in, 

For having left, in the Caliph's kitchen, 

Of a nest of scorpions no survivor : 180 

AVith him I proved no bargain-driver, 

With jou, don't think I '11 bate a stiver I 

And folks who put me in a passion 

May find me pipe after another fashion." 

" How ? " cried the Mayor, " d' ye think I brook 185 

Being worse treated than a Cook ? 

Insulted by a lazy ribald 

With idle pipe and vesture piebald ? 

You threaten us, fellow ? Do your worst, 

Blow your pipe there till you burst ! " lOO 

Once more he stept into the street, 

And to his lips again 
Laid his long pipe of smooth straight cane ; 

And ere he blew three notes (such sweet 
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning los 

Never gave the enraptured air) 
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling 
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling ; 
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering, 



26 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering, 
And, like fowls in a farm-yard when barley is 
scattering, 201 

Out came the children running. 
All the little boys and girls, 
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls. 
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls, 205 

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after 
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter. 

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood 

As if they were changed into blocks of wood, 

Unable to move a step, or cry 210 

To the children merrily skipping by, 

— Could only follow with the eye 

That joyous crowd at the Piper's back. 

But how the Mayor was on the rack. 

And the wretched Council's bosoms beat, 215 

As the Piper turned from the High Street 

To where the Weser rolled its waters 

Right in the way of their sons and daughters! 

However, he turned from South to West, 

And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed, 220 

And after him the children pressed ; 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 27 

Great was the joy in every breast. 

" He never can cross that mighty top ! 

He 's forced to let the piping drop, 

And we shall see our children stop ! " 225 

When, lo ! as they reached the mountain-side, 

A wondrous portal opened wide, 

As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed ; 

And the Piper advanced and the children followed, 

And when all were in to the very last, 230 

The door in the mountain-side shut fast. 

Did I say all ? No ! One was lame, 

And could not dance the whole of the way ; 

And in after years, if you would blame 

His sadness, he was used to say, — 235 

" It 's dull in our town since my playmates left ! 

I can't forget that I 'm bereft 

Of all the pleasant sights they see. 

Which the Piper also promised me. 

For he led us, he said, to a joyous land, 240 

Joining the town and just at hand, 

Wliere waters gushed and fruit-trees grew 

And flowers put forth a fairer hue. 

And everything was strange and new ; 

The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here, 245 



28 Lyrical Poems of Brotiming 

And their dogs outran our fallow deer, 

And honey-bees had lost their stings, 

And horses were born with eagles' wings: 

And j ust as I became assured 

My lame foot would be speedily cured, 250 

The music stopped and I stood still, 

And found myself outside the hill, 

Left alone against my will, 

To go now limping as before. 

And never hear of that country more ! " 255 

Alas, alas, for Hamelin ! 

There came into many a burgher's pate 

A text which says that heaven's gate 

Opes to the rich at as easy rate 
As the needle's eye takes a camel in ! 260 

The Mayor sent East, West, North and South, 
To offer the Piper, by word of mouth, 

Wherever it was men's lot to find him, 
Silver and gold to his heart's content. 
If he 'd only return the way he went, 205 

And bring the children behind him. 
But when they saw 't was a lost endeavor, 
And Piper and dancers were gone forever, 



The Pied Piper of Hamelin 29 

They made a decree that lawyers never 

Should think their records dated duly 270 
If, after the day of the month and year, 
These words did not as well appear, 
" And so long after what happened here 

On the Twenty-second of July, 
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six ; " 275 

And, the better in memory to fix 
The place of the children's last retreat, 
They called it the Pied Piper's Street — 
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor 
Was sure for the future to lose his labor. 280 
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern 

To shock with mirth a street so solemn ; 
But opposite the place of the cavern 

They WTote the story on a column, 
And on the great church-w^indow painted 285 
The same, to make the world acquainted 
How their children were stolen away. 
And there it stands to this very day. 
And I must not omit to say 
That in Transylvania there 's a tribe 200 

Of alien people, who ascribe 
The outlandish ways and dress 



30 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

On wliich their neighbors lay such stress, 

To their fathers and mothers having risen 

Out of some subterraneous prison 295 

Into which they were trepanned 

Long time ago in a mighty band 

Out of Ilamelin town in Brunswick land, 

But how or why, they don't understand. 

So, Willy, let me and you be wipers 300 

Of scores out with all men — especially pipers ! 

And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from 

mice. 
If we 've promised them aught, let us keep our 

promise I 



" Hotv they Brought the Good News " 31 



"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
FROM GHENT TO AIX " 

(1845) 

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he ; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three ; 

" Good speed ! " cried the watch, as the gate-bolts 

undrew ; 
" Speed ! " echoed the wall to us galloping through ; 
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 5 
And into the midnight we galloped abreast. 

Not a word to each other ; we kept the great pace 
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our 

place ; 
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique 

right, 10 

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, 
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit. 



32 Lyrical Poems of Drowning 

'T Avas nioonsct at starting ; but wliilo we drew near 
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear ; 
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see ; 15 
At DlifFeld, 't was morning as plain as could be ; 
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half- 
chime, 
So Joris broke silence with, " Yet there is time ! " 

At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun. 

And against him the cattle stood black every one, 20 

To stare through the mist at us galloping past, 

And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last, 

With resolute shoulders, each butting away 

Tiie haze, as some bluft* river headland its spray : 

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent 
back 25 

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track ; 

And one eye's black intelligence, — ever that glance 

O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance ! 

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and 
anon 

His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on. 30 



^* How they Brought the Good News *' 33 

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned ; and cried Joris, '* Stay 

spur ! 
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault 's not in her, 
We '11 remember at Aix " — for one heard the quick 

wheeze 
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering 

knees, 
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank, 35 
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank. 



So, we were left galloping, Joris and I, 
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ; 
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh, 
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like 
chaff; 40 

Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white, 
And " Gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight ! " 

" How they 'II greet us ! " — and all in a moment his 

roan 
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone ; 
And there was my Roland to bear the whole 

weight 45 

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate, 

3 



34 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim, 
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim. 

Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, 
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 50 
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without 

peer; 
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad 

or good. 
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

And all I remember is — friends flocking round 55 
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground ; 
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine. 
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine. 
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 
Was no more than his due who brought good news 
from Ghent. 60 



The Lost Leader 35 



THE LOST LExVDER 

(1845) 

Just for a handful of silver he left us, 

Just for a riband to stick in his coat — 
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, 

Lost all the others she lets us devote ; 
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, 5 

So much was theirs who so little allowed : 
How all our copper had gone for his service ! 

Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! 
We that had loved him so, followed him, honored 
him. 

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, lo 

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, 

Made him our pattern to live and to die ! 
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us, 

Burns, Shelley, were with us, — tlicy watch from 
their graves ! 
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen ! is 

— He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves ! 



36 Lyrical Poems of Browuing 

Wc shall march prosper! iitj:, — not through his 
presence ; 

Songs may inspirit us, — not from his lyre ; 
Deeds will be done, — while he boasts his quiescence, 

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire : 20 
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, 

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, 
One more devils'-trium[)h and sorrow for angels, 

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God ! 
Life's night begins : let him never come back to us ! 25 

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain, 
Forced praise on our part — the glimmer of twilight, 

Never glad, confident morning again ! 
Best fight on Avell, for we taught him — strike 
gallantly, 

Menace our heart ere we master his own ; so 

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us. 

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne ! 



Home Thoughts, from Abroad 



HOME TIIOUGTITS, FROM ABROAD 

(1845) 

Oil, to be ill England 

Now that April s there, 

And whoever wakes in Enghmd 

Sees, some niornino:, unaware. 

That the lowest bouglis and brush-wood sheaf 5 

Round the ehn-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

In England — now ! 

And after April, when May follows, 
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows ! lo 
Hark ! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge 
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover 
Blossoms and dewdrops — at the bent spray's edge 
That 's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice 

over, 
Lest you should think he never could recapture 15 
The first fine careless rapture ! 



38 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, 
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew 
The buttercups, the little children's dower 
— Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower ! 20 



Home Thoughts, from the Sea 39 



HOME THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA 

(1845) 

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest 

died away ; 
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz 

Bay ; 
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar 

lay; 
In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar 

grand and gray ; 
" Here and here did England help me : how can I 

help England ? " — say, 5 

Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise 

and pray. 
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. 



40 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

(1845) 

Morning, evening, noon and night, 
" Praise God ! " sang Theocrite. 

Then to his poor trade he turned, 
Whereby the daily meal was earned. 

Hard he labored, long and well ; 5 

O'er his work the boy's curls fell. 

But ever, at each period, 

He stopped and sang, " Praise God ! " 

Then back again his curls he threw. 

And cheerful turned to work anew. lo 

Said Blaise, the listening monk, " Well done ; 
I doubt not thou art hoard, my son : 

"As well as if thy voice to-day 

Were praising God, the Pope's great way. 



The Boy and the Angel 41 

" This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome is 

Praises God from Peter's dome." 

Said Theocrite, " Would God that I 
Might praise him that great way, and die ! " 

Night passed, day shone, 

And Theocrite was gone. 20 

With God a day endures alway, 
A thousand years are but a day. 

God said in lieaven, ^^ Nor day nor night 
Now brings the voice of my delight." 

Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, 25 

Spread his wings and sank to earth ; 

Entered, in flesh, the empty cell. 

Lived there, and played the craftsman well ; 

And morning, evening, noon and night, 
Praised God in place of Theocrite. 30 

And from a boy, to youth he grew ; 
The man put oft' the stripling's hue : 



42 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

The man matured and fell away 
Into the season of decay ; 

And ever o'er the trade he bent, 35 

And ever lived on earth content. 

(He did God's will ; to him, all one 
If on the earth or in the sun.) 

God said, " A praise is in mine ear ; 

There is no doubt in it, no fear : 40 

" So sing old worlds, and so 

New worlds that from my footstool go. 

" Clearer loves sound other ways ; 
I miss my little human praise." 

Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell 45 
The flesh disguise, remained the cell. 

'T was Easter Day : he flew to Rome, 
And paused above Saint Peter's dome. 

In tiring-room close by 

The great outer gallery, 50 



The Boy and the Angel 43 

Witli holy vestments dight, 
Stood the new Pope, Theocrite. 

And all his past career 
Came back upon him clear. 

Since, when a boy, he plied his trade, 55 

Till on his life the sickness weighed ; 

And in his cell, when death drew near, 
An angel in a dream brought cheer : 

And, rising from the sickness drear, 

He grew a priest, and now stood here. go 

To the East with praise he turned, 
And on his sight the angel burned. 

'* I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell. 
And set thee here ; I did not well. 

" Vainly I left my angel-sphere, C5 

Vain was thy dream of many a year. 

** Thy voice's praise seemed weak ; it dropped — 
Creation's chorus stopped ! 



44 Lyrical Poems of Brotvning 

" Go back and praise again 
Tlic early way, while I remain. 

" Witli that weak voice of our disdain, 
Take up creation's pausing strain. 

*' Back to the cell and poor employ : 
Resume the craftsman and the boy ! " 

Theocrite grew old at home ; 

A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome. 

One vanished as the other died ; 
They sought God side by side. 



Evelyn Hope 46 



EVELYN HOPE 

(1855) 

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! 

Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium-flower, 
Beginning to die too, in the glass ; 5 

Little has yet been changed, I think : 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. 

Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name ; lo 
It was not her time to love ; beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 
Duties enough and little cares, 

And now was quiet, now astir, 
Till God's hand beckoned unawares, — 15 

And the sweet white brow is all of her. 



46 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope ? 

What, your soul was pure and true, 
The good stars met in your horoscope, 

Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 20 

And, just because I was thrice as old 

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 
Each was naught to each, nuist I be told ? 

We were fellow mortals, naught beside ? 

No, indeed ! for God above 25 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make, 
And creates the love to reward the love : 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake ! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 

Through worlds I shall traverse not a few : ao 
Much is to learn, much to forget, 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 

But the time will come, — at last it will, 

AVhen, Evelyn Hope, wluit meant (I shall say) 

In the lower earth, in the years long still, 35 

That body and soul so pure and gay ? 

Why your hair was amber, I shall divine. 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red — 



Evelyn Hope 47 



And wliat you would do with nic, in fine, 

In the new life conic in the old one's stead. 40 

I have lived (I shall say) so much since then, 

Given up myself so many times, 
Gained me the gains of various men, 

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; 
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, 45 

Either T missed or itself missed me : 
And I want and find yon, Evelyn Hope ! 

What is the issue ? let us soc ! 

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ! 

My heart seemed full as it could hold ; 50 

There was place and to spare for the frank young 
smile. 

And the red young mouth, and the hair's young 
gold. 
So, hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep : 

See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand ! 
There, that is our secret : go to sleep ! nn 

You will wake, and remember, and undci-stand. 



48 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY 

(as distinguished by an ITALIAN PERSON 
OF quality) 

(1855) 

Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to 

spare, 
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the 

city-square ; 
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window 

there ! 

Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at 

least ! 
There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect 

feast ; 5 

Wliile up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more 

than a beast. 

Well now, look at our villa ! stuck like the horn of 

a bull 
Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's 

skull. 



Up at a Villa — Down in the City 49 

Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull ! 

— I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair 's 

turned wool. lo 

But the city, oh the city — the square with the 
houses ! Why ? 

They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there 's some- 
thing to take tlie eye ! 

Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry ; 

You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, 
who hurries by ; 

Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when 
the sun gets high ; 15 

And the shops with fanciful signs, which are painted 
properly. 

What of a villa ? Though winter be over in March 

by rights, 
'T is May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered 

well off the heights : 
You Ve the brown ploughed land before, where the 

oxen steam and wheeze. 
And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray 

olive-trees. 20 

4 



60 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Is it better in May, I ask you ? You 've summer all 

at once ; 
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. 
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three 

fingers well, 
The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great 

red bell 
Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to 

pick and sell. 25 

Is it ever hot in the square ? There 's a fountain to 

spout and splash ! 
In the shade it sings and springs ; in the shine such 

foam bows flash 
On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and 

paddle and pash 
Round the lady atop in her conch — fifty gazers do 

not abash. 
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her 

waist in a sort of sash. 30 

All the year long at the villa, nothing to see though 

you linger. 
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted 

forefinger. 



Up at a Villa — Down in the City 51 

Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix i' the com 

and mingle, 
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem 

a-tingle. 
Late August or early September, the stunning cicala 

is shrill, 35 

And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the 

resinous firs on the hill. 
Enough of the seasons, — I spare you the months of 

the fever and chill. 

Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church- 
bells begin : 
No sooner the bells leave off thau the diligence rattles 

in : 
You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never 

a pin. 40 

By and by there 's the travelling doctor gives pills, 

lets blood, draws teeth ; 
Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market 

beneath. 
At the post-office such a sceiie picture — the new 

play, piping hot ! 
And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal 

thieves were shot. 



52 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of 

rebukes, 45 

And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little 

new law of the Duke's ! 
Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend 

Don So-and-so, 
Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Saint Jerome, 

and Cicero, 
"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming,) "the 

skirts of Saint Paul has reached. 
Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more 

unctuous than ever he preached." so 

Noon strikes, — here sweeps the procession ! our 

Lady borne smiling and smart 
With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven 

swords stuck in her heart ! 
Bang-ivhang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the 

fife; 
No keeping one's haunches still : it 's the greatest 

pleasure in life. 
But bless you, it's dear — it's dear! fowls, wine, at 

double the rate. 55 

They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil 

pays passing the gate 



Up at a Villa — Down in the City 53 

It '9 a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, 

not the city ! 
Beggars can scarcely be choosers : but still — ah, the 

pity, the pity ! 
Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks 

with cowls and sandals. 
And the penitents dressed in white shirts, a-holding 

the yellow candles ; 60 

One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross 

with handles, 
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the 

better prevention of scandals : 
Bang-whang-whang goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the 

fife. 
Oh, a day in the city -square, there is no such pleasure 

in life ! 



64 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



MY STAR 

(1855) 

All that I know 

Of a certain star 
Is, it can tlirow 

(Like the angled spar) 
Now a dart of red, 5 

Now a dart of blue ; 
Till my friends have said 
They would fain see, too. 
My star that dartles the red and the blue ! 
Then it stops like a bird ; like a flower hangs 
furled : lo 

They must solace themselves witli the Saturn 
above it. 
What matter to me if their star is a wcfrld ? 

Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I 
love it. 



Memorabilia 55 



MEMORABILIA 

(1855) 

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain, 
And did he stop and speak to you, 

And did you speak to him again ? 
How strange it seems and new ! 

But you were living before that, 5 

And also you are living after ; 
And the memory I started at — 

My starting moves your laughter ! 

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own 

And a certain use in the world no doubt, lo 

Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone 
'Mid the blank miles round about : 

For there I picked up on the heather. 

And there I put inside my breast 
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather ! 15 

Well, I forget the rest. 



56 Lyrical Poems of Brotvning 

ONE WORD MORE 

TO E. B. B. 

(1855) 

^There they are, my fifty men and women, 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me together : 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 

Rafael made a century of sonnets, 5 

Made and wrote them in a certain volume 

Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 

Else he only used to draw Madonnas : 

These, the world might view — but one, the volume. 

Who that one, you ask ? Your heart instructs you. lo 

Did she live and love it all her lifetime ? 

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets. 

Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 

Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 

Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 15 

Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, 

Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's ? 



One Word More 57 



You and I would rather read that volume, 

(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 

Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 

Would we not ? than wonder at Madonnas — 

Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 

Her, that visits Florence in a vision. 

Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre — 

Seen by us and all the world in circle. 25 

You and I will never read that volume. 
Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple 
Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 
Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 

Cried, and the world cried too, *^Ours, the treas- 
ure ! " 30 
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 
Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 
Whom to please ? You whisper " Beatrice." 
While he mused and traced it and retraced it, 
(Peradventure with a pen corroded 35 
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, 
When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, 
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma, 
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment, 



58 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 
Let the wretch go festering through Florence) — 
Dante, who loved well because he hated, 
Hated wickedness tliat Iiinders loving, 
Dante standing, studying his angel, — 
In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 45 

Says he — '^ Certain people of importance" 
(Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) 
"Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet." 
Says the poet — '^ Then I stopped my painting." 

You and I would rather sec that angel, 50 

Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
Would we not ? — than read a fresh Inferno. 

You and I will never see that picture. 

While he mused on love and Beatrice, 

While he softened o'er his outlined angel, 55 

In they broke, those '^people of importance : " 

We and Bice bear the loss forever. 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture ? 
This : no artist lives and loves, that longs not 
Once, and only once, and for one only, 60 

(Ah, the prize !) to tind his love a language 



One Word More 59 



Fit and fixir and simple and sufficient — 

Using nature tliat 's an art to others, 

Not, this one time, art that 's turned his nature. 

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 05 

None but would forego his proper dowry, — 

Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem, — 

Does he write ? he fain would paint a picture, 

Put to proof art alien to the artist's. 

Once, and only once, and for one only 70 

So to be the man and leave the artist. 

Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 

Wherefore ? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement ! 
He who smites the rock and spreads the water. 
Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, 75 

Even he, the minute makes immortal. 
Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, 
Desecrates, beside, the deed in doing. 
While he smites, how can he but remember. 
So he smote belike, in such a peril, ho 

When they stood and mocked — '' Shall smiting help 

us?" 
When they drank and sneered — ''A stroke is easy ! " 
When they wiped their mouths and went their journey. 



60 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Throwing him for thanks — ^' But drought was 

pleasant." 
Thus old memories mar the actual triumph ; 85 

Thus the doing savors of disrelish ; 
Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat ; 
O'er importuned brows becloud the mandate, 
Carelessness or consciousness, — the gesture. 
For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 

Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces. 
Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude — 
" How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us ? " 
Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — 
" Egypt's flesh-pots — nay, the drought was better." 95 

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic v/arrant ! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance. 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off" the prophet. 

Did he love one face from out the thousands, ino 

(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely, 
Were she but the Ethiopian bondslave,) 
He would envy yon dumb patient camel, 
Keeping a reserve of scanty water 



One Word More 61 



Meant to save his own life in the desert ; 105 

Ready in the desert to deliver 
(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 
Hoard and life together for his mistress. 

I shall never, in the years remaining, 

Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues, no 

Make you music that should all-express me ; 

So it seems : I stand on my attainment. 

This of verse alone, one life allows me ; 

Verse and nothing else have I to give you. 

Other heights in other lives, God willing : 115 

All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love I 

Yet a semblance of resource avails us — 
Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize it. 
Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly. 
Lines I write the first time and the last time. 120 
He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, 
Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly. 
Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little, 
Makes a strange art of an art familiar. 
Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 125 

He who blows through bronze, may breathe through 
silver. 



Lyrical Poems of Browning 



Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess. 

He who writes, may write for once as I do. 

Love, you saw me gather men and women, 

Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy, 130 

Enter each and all, and use their service. 

Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. 

Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 

Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving : 

I am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, 135 

Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, and the fifty. 

Let me speak this once in my true person, 

Not as Lippo, Roland, or Andrea, 

Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence : 

Pray you, look on these my men and women, 140 

Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; 

Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also ! 

Poor the speech ; be how I speak, for all tilings. 

Not but that you know me ! Lo, the moon's self ! 
Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 145 

Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 
Curving on a sky imbrued with color, 
Drifted over Fiesole by twilight. 



One Word More 63 



Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. 
Fulled she flared it, lamping Samminiato, iso 

Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, 
Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished, 
Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs, 
Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver, 155 

Goes dispiritedly, glad to finish. 

What, there's nothing in the moon noteworthy? 

Nay : for if that moon could love a mortal, 

Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy), 

All her magic ('t is the old sweet mythos), I60 

She would turn a new side to her mortal, 

Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 

Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace, 

Blind to Galileo on his turret. 

Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even ! 105 

Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — 

When she turns round, comes again in heaven, 

Opens out anew for worse or better ! 

Proves she like some portent of an iceberg 

Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 170 

Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals ? 



64 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Proves she as the paved work of a sapphire 

Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ? 

Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 

Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 175 

Stand upon the paved work of a sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved work, 

When they ate and drank and saw God also ! 

What were seen? None knows, none ever shall 
know, 180 

Only this is sure — the sight were other, 
Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, 
Dying now impoverished here in London. 
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 185 
One to show a woman when he loves her ! 

This I say of me, but think of you. Love ! 
This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 
Ah, but that 's the world's side, there 's the wonder. 
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know 
you ! 190 

There, in turn I stand with them and praise you — 
Out of iny own self, I dare to phrase it. 



One Word More 65 



But the best is when I glide from out them, 
Cross a step or two of dubious twilight, 
Come out on the other side, the novel, 105 

Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 
Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 

Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, 

Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 

Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it, 200 

Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom ! 



66 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



PROSPICE 

(1864) 

Fear death ? — to feel the fog in my throat, 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, 5 

The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey is done and the summit attained. 

And the barriers fall, lo 

Though a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained. 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 

The best and the last ! 
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and 
forbore, 15 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 

The heroes of old. 



Prospice 67 



Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness and cold. 20 

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute 's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of 
pain, 25 

Then a light, then thy breast, 
thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, 

And with God be the rest ! 



68 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



LYRIC LOVE. 

(1868-69) 

LYRIC Love, half angel and half bird 

And all a wonder and a wild desire, — 

Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, 

Took sanctuary within the holier blue, 

And sang a kindred soul out to his face, — 5 

Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart — 

When the first summons from the darkling earth 

Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their 

blue. 
And bared them of the glory — to drop down. 
To toil for man, to suffer or to die, — lO 

This is the same voice : can thy soul know change ? 
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help ! 
Never may I commence my song, my due 
To God who best taught song by gift of thee, 
Except with bent head and beseeching hand — 15 
That still despite the distance and the dark, 
What was, again may be ; some interchange 
Of Grace, some splendour once thy very thought. 



Lyric Love 69 



Some benediction anciently thy smile : 
— Never conclude, but raising band and head 20 
Thither where eyes, that cannot reach, yet yearn 
For all hope, all sustainment, all reward. 
Their utmost up and on, — so blessing back 
In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, 
Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes 
proud, 25 

Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall ! 



70 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



HERVE KIEL 

(1876) 

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety- 
two, 
Did the English fight the French, — woe to 
France ! 

And, the thirty -first of May, helter-skelter through the 
blue, 

Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks 
pursue, 
Came crowding ship on ship to Saint Malo on the 
Ranee, 5 

With the Enojlish fleet in view. 



'T was the squadron that escaped, with the victor in 
full chase ; 
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, 
Damefreville ; 
Close on him fled, great and small, 
Twenty-two good ships in all ; lo 



Herv4 Riel 71 



And they signalled to the place 
" Help the winners of a race ! 

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick — 
or, quicker still, 

Here 's the English can and will I " 



Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt 

on board ; 15 

" Why, what hope or chance have ships like these 

to pass ? " laughed they : 

" Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage 

scarred and scored. 
Shall the 'Formidable' here with her twelve and 
eighty guns 
Think to make the river-mouth by the single nar- 
row way, 
Trust to enter where 't is ticklish for a craft of twenty 
tons, 20 

And with flow at full beside ? 
Now, 't is slackest ebb of tide. 
Reach the mooring ? Rather say, 
While rock stands or water runs. 

Not a ship will leave the bay ! " 23 



72 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Then was called a council straight. 

Brief and bitter the debate : 

" Here 's the English at our heels ; would you have 

them take in tow 
All that 's left us of the fleet, linked together stern 

and bow, 
For a prize to Plymouth Sound ? 30 

Better run the ships aground ! " 

(Ended Damfreville his speech). 
^* Not a minute more to wait ! 
Let the Captains all and each 
Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on 
the beach ! 35 

France must undergo her fate. 



" Give the word ! " But no such word 
Was ever spoke or heard ; 

For up stood, for out stepped, for in struck amid 
all these 
— A Captain ? A Lieutenant ? A Mate — first, 
second, third? 40 

No such man of mark, and meet 
With his betters to compete ! 



Herv4 Riel 73 



But a simple Breton sailor pressed by Tourville 
for the fleet, 
A poor coastiiig-pilot he, Herv^ Riel the Croisickese. 



And " What mockery or malice have we here ? " cries 

Herv^ Riel : 45 

" Are you mad, you Malouins ? Are you cowards, 

fools, or rogues ? 

Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the 

soundings, tell 
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every 
swell 
'Twixt the offing here and Gr^ve where the river 
disembogues ? 
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the 
lying 's for ? 50 

Morn and eve, night and day, 
Have I piloted your bay. 
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor. 
Burn the fleet and ruin France ? That were worse 
than fifty Hogues ! 
Sirs, they know I speak the truth ! Sirs, believe 
me there 's a way ! 55 



74 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Only let me lead the line, 

Have the biggest ship to steer, 
Get this ^ Formidable ' clear, 
Make the others follow mine. 

And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know 
well, 60 

Right to Solidor past Gr^ve, 

And there lay them safe and sound ; 
And if one ship misbehave, 

— Keel so much as grate the ground. 
Why, I Ve nothing but my life, — here 's my head ! " 
cries Herv^ Riel. 65 



Not a minute more to wait. 

'^ Steer us in, then, small and great ! 

Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron ! '' 
cried its chief. 
Captains, give the sailor place ! 

He is Admiral, in brief. 70 

Still the north- wind, by God's grace ! 
See the noble fellow's face 
As the big ship, with a bound, 
Clears the entry like a hound, 



Heri4 Riel 75 



Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide 
sea's profound ! 75 

See, safe through shoal and rock, 
How they follow in a flock, 
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates 
the ground, 
Not a spar that comes to grief! 
The peril, see, is past, 80 

All are harbored to the last, 
And just as Hervd Riel hollas " Anchor ! " — sure as 

fate, 
Up the English come — too late ! 



So, the storm subsides to calm : 

They see the green trees wave 85 

On the heights o'erlooking Gr^ve. 
Hearts that bled are stanched with balm. 
" Just our rapture to enhance. 

Let the English rake the bay, 
Gnash their teeth and glare askance. 90 

As they cannonade away ! 
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the 
Ranee ! " 



yQ Lyrical Poems of Browning 

How hope succeeds despair on each Captain's coun- 
tenance ! 
Out burst all with one accord, 

" This is Paradise for Hell ! 95 

Let France, let France's King 
Thank the man that did the thing ! " 
What a shout, and all one word, 

" Hervd Ricl ! " 
As he stepped in front once more, lOO 

Not a symptom of surprise 
In the frank blue Breton eyes. 
Just the same man as before. 

Then said Damfreville, " My friend, 

I must speak out at the end, 105 

Though I find the speaking hard. 
Praise is deeper than the lips : 
You have saved the King his ships. 

You must name your own reward. 
'Faith, our sun was near eclipse ! no 

Demand whate'er you will, 
France remains your debtor still. 
Ask to heart's content and have ! or my name 's not 
Damfreville." 



Herv4 Riel 77 



Then a beam of fun outbroke 

On the bearded mouth that spoke, iin 

As the honest heart hiughed through 

Those frank eyes of Breton blue : 

" Since I needs must say my say, 

Since on board the duty 's done. 

And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it 
but a run ? — 120 

Since 't is ask and have, I may — 

Since the others go ashore — 
Come ! A good whole holiday ! 

Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the 
Belle Aurore ! " 

That he asked and that he got, — nothing more. 125 

Name and deed alike are lost : 
Not a pillar nor a post 

In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell ; 
Not a head in white and black 
On a single fishing-smack, 130 

In memory of the man but for whom had gone 
to wrack 
All that France saved from the fight whence Eng- 
land bore the belL 



78 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Go to Paris : rank on rank 

Search tlie heroes flung pell-mell 
On the Louvre, face and flank ! 135 

You shall look long enough ere you come to Herv^ 
Kiel. 
So, for better and for worse, 
Herv6 Riel, accept my verse ! 
In my verse Herv^ Riel, do thou once more 
Save the squadron, honour France, love thy wife the 
Belle Aurore ! 140 



Pheidippides 79 



PHEIDIPPIDES 

(1879) 
Xaip€T€, viKa>^ev. 

First I salute this soil of the blessed, river and rock ! 

Gods of my birthplace, daemons and heroes, honor to 
all! 

Then I name thee, claim thee for our patron, co-equal 
in praise 

— Ay, with Zeus the Defender, with Her of the segis 
and spear ! 

Also, ye of the bow and the buskin, praised be your 
peer. 5 

Now, henceforth and forever, — latest to whom I 
upraise 

Hand and heart and voice ! For Athens, leave pas- 
ture and flock ! 

Present to help, potent to save, Pan — patron I call ! 

Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix, see, I 

return ! 
See, 't is myself here standing alive, no spectre that 

speaks ! 10 



80 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Crowned with the myrtle, did you command me, 

Athens and you, 
" Run, Pheidippides, run and race, reach Sparta for 

aid! 
Persia has come, we are here, where is She ? " Your 

command I obeyed, 
Ran and raced : like stubble, some field which a fire 

runs through. 
Was the space between city and city : two days, two 

nights did I burn is 

Over the hills, under the dales, down pits and up 

peaks. 



Into their midst I broke : breath served but for 

" Persia has come ! 
Persia bids Athens proffer slaves' -tribute, water and 

earth ; 
Razed to the ground is Eretria — but Athens, shall 

Athens sink, 
Drop into dust and die — the flower of Hellas utterly 

die, 20 

Die, with the wide world spitting at Sparta, the 

stupid, the stander-by? 



Pheidippides 81 



Answer me quick, what help, what hand do you 

stretch o'er destruction's brink ? 
How, — when ? No care for my limbs ! — there 's 

lightning in all and some — 
Fresh and fit your message to bear, once lips give it 

birth ! " 



my Athens — Sparta love thee ? Did Sparta re- 
spond ? 25 

Every face of her leered in a furrow of envy, mis- 
trust, 

Malice, — each eye of her gave me its glitter of grati- 
fied hate ! 

Gravely they turned to take counsel, to cast for ex- 
cuses. I stood 

Quivering, — the limbs of me fretting as fire frets, an 
inch from dry wood : 

" Persia has come, Athens asks aid, and still they 
debate ? so 

Thunder, thou Zeus ! Athene, are Spartans a quarry 
beyond 

Swing of thy spear? Phoibos and Artemis, clang 
them ' Ye must ' ! " 

6 



82 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

No bolt launched from Olumpos ! Lo, their answer 

at last ! 
*' Has Persia come, — does Athens ask aid, — may 

Sparta befriend ? 
Nowise precipitate judgment — too weighty the issue 

at stake ! 35 

Count we no time lost time which lags through re- 
spect to the gods ! 
Ponder that precept of old, ' No warfare, whatever 

the odds 
In your favor, so long as the moon, half-orbed, is 

unable to take 
Full-circle her state in the sky ! ' Already she rounds 

to it fast : 
Athens must wait, patient as we — who judgment 

suspend." 40 



Athens, — except for that sparkle, — thy name, I had 

mouldered to ash ! 
That sent a blaze through my blood; off, off and 

away was I back, 
— Not one word to waste, one look to lose on the 

false and the vile ! 



Pheidlppides 83 

Yet " gods of my land ! " I cried, as each hillock 

and plain, 
Wood and stream, I knew, I named, rushing past 

them again, 4^ 

" Have ye kept faith, proved mindful of honors we 

paid you erewhile ? 
Vain was the filleted victim, the fulsome libation ! 

Too rash 
Love in its choice, paid you so largely service so 

slack I 



" Oak and olive and bay, — I bid you cease to en- 
wreathe 

Brows made bold by your leaf ! Fade at the Per- 
sian's foot, 50 

You that, our patrons were pledged, should never 
adorn a slave ! 

Rather I hail thee, Panics, — trust to thy wild waste 
tract ! 

Treeless, herbless, lifeless mountain ! What matter 
if slacked 

My speed may hardly be, for homage to crag and to 
cave 



84 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

No deity deigns to drape with verdure ? at least I 
can breathe, 55 

Fear in thee no fraud from the blind, no lie from the 
mute ! " 

Such my cry as, rapid, I ran over Parnes' ridge ; 
Gully and gap I clambered and cleared till, sudden a 

bar 
Jutted, a stoppage of stone against me, blocking the 

way. 
Right ! for I minded the hollow to traverse, the 

fissure across : 60 

" Where I could enter, there I depart by ! Night in 

the fosse ? 
Athens to aid ? Though the dive were through 

Erebos, thus I obey — 
Out of the day dive, into the day as bravely arise ! 

No bridge 
Better ! " — when — ha ! what was it I came on, of 

wonders that are ? 

There, in the cool of a cleft, sat he — majestical 
Pan ! G5 

Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned 
his hoof: 



Pheidippides 85 



All the great god was good in tlie eyes grave-kindly — 

the curl 
Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's 

awe, 
As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I 

saw. 
'^Halt, Pheidippides!"— halt I did, my brain of a 

whirl : ' '^ 

^'Hither to me! Why pale in my presence?" he 

gracious began : 
" How is it, — Athens, only in Hellas, holds me aloof? 

" Athens, she only, rears me no fane, makes me no 

feast ! 
Wherefore ? Than I what godship to Athens more 

helpful of old ? 
Ay, and still, and forever her friend ! Test Pan, trust 

me ! 
Go, bid Athens take heart, laugh Persia to scorn, have 

faith 
In the temples and tombs ! Go, say to Athens, ' The 

Goat-God saith : 
When Persia— so much as strews not the soil — is 

cast in the sea. 



86 Lyrical Poems of Broivning 

Then praise Pan who fought in the ranks with your 

most and least, 

Goat-thigh to greaved-thigh, made one cause with 

the free and the bold ! ' so 

" Say Pan saith : ' Let this, foreshowing the place, be 

the pledge!'" 
(Gay, the liberal hand held out this herbage I bear 
— Fennel — I grasped it a-tremble with dew — what- 
ever it bode) 
" While, as for thee "... But enough ! He was 

gone. If I ran hitherto — 
Be sure that, the rest of my journey, I ran no longer, 

but flew. 85 

Parnes to Athens — earth no more, the air was my 

road : 
Here am I back. Praise Pan, we stand no more on 

the razor's edge ! 
Pan for Athens, Pan for me ! I too have a guerdon 

rare ! 

Then spoke Miltiades. "And thee, best runner of 

Greece, 
Whose limbs did duty indeed, — what gift is promised 

thyself? 90 



Pheidippides 87 



Tell it us straightway, — Athens the mother demands 

of her son ! " 
Rosily blushed the youth: he paused: but, lifting at 

length 
His eyes from the ground, it seemed as he gathered 

the rest of his strength 
Into the utterance — '' Pan spoke thus : ' For what 

thou hast done 
Count on a worthy reward ! Henceforth be allowed 

thee release 95 

From the racer's toil no vulgar reward in praise or in 

pelf!' 

'^ I am bold to believe, Pan means reward the most 

to my mind ! 
Fight I shall, with our foremost, wherever this fennel 

may grow, — 
Pound — Pan helping us — Persia to dust, and, 

under the deep, 
Whelm her away forever ; and then, — no Athens to 

save, — 100 

Marry a certain maid, I know keeps faith to the 

brave, — 
Hie to my house and home : and, when my children 

shall creep 



88 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Close to my knees, — recount how the God was 

awful yet kind, 
Promised their sire reward to the full — rewarding 

him — so ! " 

Unforeseeing one ! Yes, he fought on the Marathon 

day : los 

So, when Persia was dust, all cried '' To Akropolis ! 
Run, Pheidippides, one race more ! the need is thy 

due ! 
* Athens is saved, thank Pan,' go shout ! " He flung 

down his shield. 
Ran like fire once more : and the space 'twixt the 

Fennel-field 
And Athens was stubble again, a field which a fire 

runs through, no 

Till in he broke : " Rejoice, we conquer ! " Like 

wine through clay, 
Joy in his blood bursting his heart, he died — the 

bliss ! 

So, to this day, when friend meets friend, the word 
of salute 

Is still *' Rejoice ! " — his word which brought re- 
joicing indeed. 



Pheidippides 89 



So is Pheidippides happy forever, — the noble strong 

mail 115 

Who could race like a god, bear the face of a god, 

whom a god loved so well ; 
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and 

was suffered to tell 
Such tidings, yet never decline, but, gloriously as he 

began , 
So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be 

mute : 
" Athens is saved ! " — Pheidippides dies in the shout 

for his meed. 120 



90 Lyrical Poems of Browning 



MULfiYKEH 

(1880) 

If a stranger passed the tent of Hoseyn, he cried " A 
churl's ! " 

Or haply " God help the man who has neither salt 
nor bread ! " 

— " Nay," would a friend exclaim, " he needs nor 
pity nor scorn 

More than who spends small thought on the shore- 
sand, picking pearls, 

—- Holds but in light esteem the seed-sort, bears 
instead 5 

On his breast a moon-like prize, some orb which of 
night makes morn. 

" What if no flocks and herds enrich the son of 

Sin/m ? 
They went when his tribe was mulct, ten thousand 

camels the due. 
Blood-value paid perforce for a murder done of old. 
' God gave them, let them go ! But never since time 

began, lo 



MiiUykeh 91 



Mul6ykeh, peerless mare, owned master the match of 

you, , 

And you are my prize, my Pearl: I laugh at mens 

land and gold ! ' 

" So in the pride of his soul laughs Hoseyn — and 

right, I say. 
Do the ten steeds run a race of glory ? Outstrippmg all. 
Ever Mul^ykeh stands first steed at the victor's 

staff. 
Who started, the owner's hope, gets shamed and 

named, that day. 
^ Silence,' or, last but one, is ' The Cuffed,' as we use 

to call 
Whom the paddock's lord thrusts forth. Right, 
H6seyn, I say, to laugh ! " 

" Boasts he Muleykeh the Pearl ? " the stranger re- 
plies : " Be sure 
On him I waste nor scorn nor pity, but lavish both 20 
On Duhl the son of Sheybdn, who withers away in 

heart 
For envy of H6seyn's luck. Such sickness admits no 

cure. 



92 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

A certain poet has sung, and sealed the same with an 

oath, 
* For the vulgar — flocks and herds I The Pearl is a 

prize apart.' " 

Lo, Duhl the son of Sheybdn comes riding to Hoseyn's 

tent, 25 

And he casts his saddle down, and enters and 

" Peace ! " bids he. 
" You are poor, I know the cause : my plenty shall 

mend the wrong. 
'T is said of your Pearl — the price of a hundred 

camels spent 
In her purchase were scarce ill paid : such prudence 

is far from me 
Who profi'er a thousand. Speak ! Long parley may 

last too long." 20 

Said H6seyn, "You feed young beasts a many, of 

famous breed. 
Slit-eared, unblemished, fat, true ofi'spring of Miizen- 

nem : 
There stumbles no weak-eyed she in the line as it 

climbs the hill. 



MuUykeh 93 



But I love Mul^jkeh's face : her forefront whitens 

indeed 
Like a yellowish wave's cream-crest. Your camels 

go gaze on them ! 35 

Her fetlock is foam-splashed too. Myself am the 

richer still." 

A year goes by : lo, back to the tent again rides Duhl. 
" You are open-hearted, ay — moist-handed, a very 

prince. 
Why should I speak of sale? Be the mare your 

simple gift ! 
My son is pined to death for her beauty: my wife 

prompts ' Fool, 40 

Beg for his sake the Pearl ! Be God the rewarder, 

since 
God pays debts seven for one: who squanders on 

Him shows thrift.' " 

Said H6seyn, " God gives each man one life, like a 

lamp, then gives 

That lamp due measure of oil : lamp lighted — hold 

high, wave wide 

Its comfort for others to share ! oncequench it, what 

help is left ? 45 



94 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

The oil of your lamp is your son : I shine while 
Mulcykeh lives. 

Would I beg your son to eheer my dark if Muldykeh 
died? 

It is life against life : what good avails to the life- 
bereft ? " 

Another year, and — hist ! What craft is it Duhl 
designs ? 

He alights not at the door of the tent as he did last 
time, 60 

But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by 
the trench 

Half-round till he finds the flap in the folding, for 
night combines 

With the robber — and such is he : Duhl, covetous 
up to crime. 

Must wring from H(')seyn's grasp the Pearl, by what- 
ever the wrench. 

" He was hunger-bitten, I heard : I tempted with 
half my store, 55 

And a gibe was all my tiianks. Is he generous like 
Spring dew ? 

Account the fault to me who chaffbred with such an 
one ! 



MuUykeh 95 



He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he 

rode : nay, more — 
For acouple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two: 
I will beg ! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my 

wife and son. go 

"I swear by the Holy House, my head will I never 

wash 
Till I filch his Pearl away. Fair dealing I tried, then 

guile, 
And now I resort to force. He said we must live or 

die : 
Let him die, then, — let me live ! Be bold — but 

not too rash ! 
I have found mc a peeping-place : breast, bury your 

breathing while G5 

I explore for myself ! Now, breathe ! He deceived 

me not, the spy ! 

" As he said — there lies in peace H6seyn — how 
happy ! Beside 

Stands tethered the Pearl : thrice winds her head- 
stall about his wrist : 

Tis therefore he sleeps so sound — the moon through 
the roof reveals. 



96 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

And, loose on his left, stands too that other, known 
far and wide, 70 

Buh^yseh, her sister born : fleet is she yet ever 
missed 

The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thun- 
derous heels. 

** No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, 
in case some thief 

Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I 
mean to do. 

What then ? The Pearl is the Pearl : once mount 
her we both escape." 75 

Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl, — so a serpent 
disturbs no leaf 

In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest : 
clean through. 

He is noiselessly at his work : as he planned, he per- 
forms the rape. 

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, 

has clipped 
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice 

bound as before, so 



MuUykeh 97 



He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert 

like bolt from bow. 
Up starts our plundered man : from his breast though 

the heart be ripped, 
Yet his mind has the mastery : behold, in a minute 

more, 
He is out and off and away on Buh^yseh, whose 

worth we know ! 
And H6seyn — his blood turns flame, he has learned 

long since to ride, ^^ 

And Buh^yseh does her part, — they gain — they are 

gaining fast 
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed-Darraj to cross 

and quit. 
And to reach the ridge El-Saban, — no safety till that 

be spied ! 
And Buh^yseh is, bound by bound, but a horse-length 

off at last, 
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the 
touch of the bit. ^^ 

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider the 

strange and queer : 
Buh^yseh is mad with hope— beat sister she shall and 

must, 

7 



98 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she 

has to thank. 
She is near now, nose by tail — they are neck by 

croup — joy ! fear ! 
What folly makes H6seyn shout " Dog Duhl, Damned 

son of the Dust, 95 

Touch the right ear and press with your foot my 

Pearl's left flank ! " 

And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muleykeh as 
prompt perceived 

Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was 
to obey. 

And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished forever- 
more. 

And H6seyn looked one long last look as who, all 
bereaved, lOO 

Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may: 

Then he turned Buh^yseh's neck slow homeward, 
weeping sore. 

And, lo, in the sunrise, still sat H6seyn upon the 

ground 
Weeping : and neighbors came, the tribesmen of 

B^nu-Asdd 



MuUykeh 99 



In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned 

him of his grief : 105 

And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl 

had wound 
His way to the nest, and how Duhl rode like an ape, 

so bad ! 
And how Buh^yseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained 

with the thief. 

And they jeered him, one and all : ^^ Poor H6seyn is 

crazed past hope ! 
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's 

spite ? 110 

To have simply held the tongue were a task for boy 

or girl. 
And here were Muleykeh again, the eyed like an 

antelope. 
The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast 

by night! " — 
" And the beaten in speed ! " wept H6seyn. 

" You never have loved my Pearl." 115 



100 Lyrical Poems of Browning 

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 

(1889) 

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, 

When you set your fancies free, 
Will they pass to where — by death, fools think, 

imprisoned — 
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved 

so, 

— Pity me ? 5 

Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken ! 

What had I on earth to do 
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly ? 
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel 

— Being — who ? lo 

One who never turned his back but marched breast 
forward, 
Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 

would triumph. 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better. 

Sleep to wake. 15 



Epilogue to Asolando 101 

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time 

Greet the unseen with a cheer ! 
Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, 
'^Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed, — fight on, fare 
ever 

There as here ! " 20 



NOTES 



First Period : - 1841 

Robert Brownino was born May 7, 1812. It is not with- 
out its significance that tliis poet, in whom was 

A principle of restlessness, 
Which would be all, have, see, know, taste, feel, all, 

should have been born, like his great predecessor, Milton, in 
the busy metropolis of London, and of an ancestry which 
united taste and refinement witli the ordinary activities of 
men of business. His home influences were in many respects 
like those of Milton two centuries earlier, and like Milton he 
was ever ready in later life to pay tribute to the father's self- 
sacrifice and the mother's tender and sympathetic guidance. 
Living at Camberwell, a suburb of London, he was not de- 
prived of nature's attractions in rivers, woods, and hills, 
while enjoying the sights and sounds of the busy hamits of 
men. Nature and human life thus came to be of interest to 
him almost simultaneously with the arts of poetry, painting, 
and music. It is no wonder that under the influences of such 
an environment, the child came to live in dreams. He was 
educated at home, in music, singing, dancing, boxing, riding, 
and fencing, until he was ten years of age, when he was placed 
in a day school at Peckham, where he remained until he was 



104 Notes 

fourteen. During these days he seemed more in love with 
nature than with books. He began to seek melodious expres- 
sion for his feelings, sometimes after the manner of Pope, but 
oftener in a Byronic vein. His father, fearing the results of 
such a revolutionary spirit, often inveighed against the temper 
of this "new fangled Byron." When only twelve, Browning 
gave his mother some manuscript ballads for which he had 
failed to find a publisher, and she with a true motherly in- 
stinct showed them to some friends, who detected the latent 
poetic fervor in them ; she bought then for him a pirated vol- 
ume of Shelley's Queen Mob and Other Poems^ and one of Keats. 
Soon after this, as he said, " two nightingales strove one against 
the other," and he became possessed of the spirits of these 
romancers. 

After completing his studies at the school he remained at 
home with a tutor, and fed his appetite on history, poetry, 
music, and experimental science. In Pauline he said, while 
looking back to these days : 

So, as I grew, I rudely shaped my life 

To my imtuediate wants ; yet strong beneath 

Was a vague sense of power, though folded up — 

A sense that, though those sliades and times were past, 

Their spirit dwelt in me, with them should rule. 

He attended lectures at London University for a short time, 
and then began that study in the greater University of men 
and things through travel. He was twenty, and had already 
planned "a series of monodramatic epics, narratives of the 
lives of typical souls," — the vein which he worked so assidu- 
ously and successfully through life. His first production in this 
line was Pauline ; A Fragment of a Confession, a poem full of 



Pages 1-2] Notes 105 

autobiographical pictures of life. It was published anony- 
mously in 18;^8, when he was twenty-one years of age, and the 
expense of printing was borne by his aunt. How little it 
attracted readers of poetry is revealed in the fact that it was 
not republished until 1868. 



PARACELSUS 

1835 

Pauline made but little stir in the literary world of its day, 
although it attracted a few of the poet's personal friends. Mr. 
W. J. Fox, editor of the Monthly Re-positov%j ^ was the earliest of 
Browning's sympathetic critics, and to him the poet owed much. 
That the poem attracted so few seems the more surprising 
when we consider that hardly any first publication of an 
English poet revealed so much of promise. 

Soon after Pauline was given to the world, Browning visited 
St. Petersburg for a time with the Russian Consul-General. 
He returned to England early in 18:^4 with this thought in his 
heart: 

Oh to be in England, 

Now that April 's there! 

and during the fall and winter he wrote Paracelsus^ which was 
published in the summer of I8o5 at his father's expense. 

In Paiilinc he had said, " I am made up of intensest life," and 
this is first made evident in Paracelsus. The scientific spirit of 
the fifteenth century, in its chivalrous quest of knowledge, its 
noble enthusiasm in life, fascinated him. It was through 
Paracelsus^ which reveals the fallacy of the intellect, that the 



106 Noten [Pages 1-3 

most intellectual poet of our time became introduced to the 
literary world. 

SoNo: " Thus the Mayne glideth " 

One travelling from Nuremberg to Frankfort would pass 
through the country here described and would find Browning's 
description true to the sentiment of the scenery. 

The three great teachers, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Brown- 
ing, by virtue of the vision and faculty divine, while musing 

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, 
have revealed the same essential truth, — the divinity of Nature 
and Man. In scientific accuracy of description, Tennyson and 
Browning are much alike. They often describe aspects of 
nature and animal life for their own sakes; while Wordsworth 
does this rarely. If he portrays the shadow which the daisy 
casts, it is to reveal its almost human purpose — 

To protect the lingering dewdrop from the sun. 
In this lyric Browning reveals only sights and sounds. 

Tlui muses are jealous mistresses and will not send their 
choicest gifts of song to those who plunge into the con- 
troversies of the world. 

Second Period: 1841-1868 

nVPA PASSES 

ISU 

New Ykak's Hymn 

The publication of Paracelsus extended Browning's social 
circle. On mei^tiiig friends at dinner at Sargeant Talfourd's, 



Page 3] NoteS 107 

the toast " The Poets of England " was proposed, with a kindly 
reference to the young poet, the author of Paracelsus. Words- 
worth, who was present, leaned across the table and graciously 
said, " I am proud to drink your health, Mr. Browning." 
Browning's father had removed to Ilatcham, and in 1885 his 
friendship with the actor Macready began and brought with 
it significant consequences; for Macready requested him to 
write a play, and from 1837 to 1846 he became a writer of plays. 
Strajfbrd, the first of these, was played by Macready at Covent 
Garden, but without financial success. In the spring of 1838 
he set out iipon his first visit to Italy, bordello, a companion 
to Paracelsus^ was begun in 18^:55, but as he wished to execute 
a part of the work in Italy it was not published until 1840. 

On his return from Italy, Flpjm Passes, the dramas. King 
Victor and King Charles, and The Pcturn of the Druses occupied 
his attention. At the same time he began short lyrical pieces, 
and in 1841 issued the first series of his poems in a pamphlet 
called Bells andj Pomegranates. (Of. Exodus, xxviii. 33, 34.) 
This idea was suggested by Moxon the publisher, and the ex- 
pense of publication was borne by his father. The first of this 
series was Pippa Passes, a lyrical mask, suggested by his visit 
to Asolo, his first love among Italian cities, which was des- 
tined to be his last love as well. Mrs. Orr says that the idea 
of this poem came to Browning when he was walking alone in 
Dulwich wood, from thinking of one walking alone through 
life, apparently too humble to have any influence, and yet un- 
consciously affecting the lives of others. 

Pippa is a little silk-weaver of Asolo, in the Trevisan, who 
on waking early one New Year's day, her only holiday in the 
year, plans how she will celebrate. She remembers four repre- 
sentative types — *' four happiest ones " — the wealthy Ottima, 



108 Notes [Pages 3-5 

the young bride Phene, the young patriot Luigi, and the Bishop. 
As her fancy works, she says : 

For am T not, this day, 

Whate'er I please ? What shall I please to-day ? 

I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 

That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names, 

Of the Happiest Four in Asolo. 

Then she bursts forth in this dewy morning Song of Service, 
her New Year's Hymn, as she takes the street, fancy free. 

Song: " The year 's at the spring " 

This radiantly beautiful song, with its liquid melody, Pippa 
sings as she ascends the hill where Ottima sits with her para- 
mour Sebald, who after having killed her husband Luca, is 
about to crown her; as they hear it, they are arrested in their 
vicious lives and change their manners. The song bears marks 
of the influence of Keats. 

Song : Give her but a least excuse," etc. 

Some art students, learning that one of their number is in 
love with a young Greek girl, who is an artist's model, play 
a trick on him by sending to him letters as from her, which 
lead him to believe she is a woman of birth and culture. 
When they are married he learns that she is only an ignorant 
peasant girl and is about to discard her with a sum of money, 
but he hears Pippa singing this song as she passes, his man- 
hood is awakened, and he repents. 

Soi^g: " A king lived long ago " 

(This song was first published in the Monthly EejwsUory, 
1835-1836.) 



Pages 5-8] Notes 109 

Luigi, a young patriot who thinks all kings are tyrants, is 
believed to have joined the secret society of the Carbonari, 
and is under suspicion by the authorities. He is visiting his 
mother, and is urged by her not to think so rashly of the 
Emperor, when he hears Pippa singing this old folk-song as 
she passes the tower where he is. He sees how he has mis- 
judged his ruler, and becomes a real patriot. 

Song : " Over-head the tree-tops meet " 

As Pippa passes the house of the bishop, he is planning her 
death because she is the child of his brother, at whose death 
he connived and whose property he is enjoying. When he 
hears this song his conscience is aroused and he repents. Mr. 
Chesterton thinks that in this episode of the poem Browning 
made a literary mistake. He says: "The whole central and 
splendid idea of the drama is the fact that Pippa is utterly 
remote from the grand folk whose lives she troubles and trans- 
forms. To make her in the end turn out to be the niece of one 
of them is like a whiff from an Adelphi melodrama." 

The Day's Close at Asolo 

At last, tired out with her day's fancies, Pippa returns to her 
squalid room, unconscious of the great work she has done. 
As she lies down to sleep, she thinks of the silk she may weave 
as possibly destined to adorn Ottima's cloak, and this song 
voices itself. It is full of Browning's revelation of the truth 
that Pippa, having rekindled the flame of love and devotion in 
the hearts of these great ones, is happier than they. Speaking 
of the happy instinct which caused Browning to make the cen- 
tral character here a woman, Mr. Chesterton says : *' A man's 



110 Notes [Pages 8-11 

good work is effected by doing what he does, a woman's by 
being what she is." Pippa Passes has already won a place 
among poems of supreme glory, which means enduring fame 
for its author. It suggests Wordsworth's little poem written 
in the album of his god-daughter : 

Small service is true service while it lasts : 
Of humblest friends, bright creature I 

Scorn not one : 
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, 
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun. 

There are in this poem no bewildering byways and obscure 
nooks of a remote time to be examined by the intellect ; only 
the natural passion of a simple and wholesome child-life to be 
enjoyed by tender and delicate imaginative insight. 

Second Period: 1841-1868 

CAVALIER TUNES 

Marching Along — Give a Rouse — Boot and Saddle 

1842 

In 1842 Browning published series ii and iii of Bells and 
Pomegranates; the former being the drama, King Victor and 
King Charles^ and the latter. Dramatic Lyrics^ sixteen in all. 
The latter are original in form, vivid in imagination, vital in 
passion, rich and true in conception, while they sparkle with 
the colors of nature and throb with the life of the spirit; they 
are preludes to the symphony to be. They are verily bells for 
the delight, and food for the sustenance of man. 



Page 11] NoteS 111 

It is evident that while preparing Strafford, a drama dealing 
with the great period in English history, the period of the civil 
war, Browning became an enthusiastic admirer of the romantic 
spirit of the young cavaliers. This was natural for a youth of 
his temperament and ideals. Mrs. Bridell Fox says: " He was 
at this time slim and dark and very handsome and — may I 
hint it? — just a trifle of a dandy, addicted to lemon-colored 
kid gloves and such things ; quite the glass of fashion and the 
mold of form." 

In these poems Browning succeeds admirably in bringing 
before us an intensely animated picture. They are the only 
instances where he takes his subject from English life. The 
romantic life of the cavalier interested him. Of the three 
songs, the second is the most moving. The scene is at the 
height of the civil war between Cavalier and Puritan, and the 
cavaliers are assembled in the ancient banqueting hall, where, 
amid shouts of the followers of Charles and the clinking of 
glasses, a toast is proposed to their picturesque leader. The 
spirit of loyalty, the enthusiasm, the dash and daring, give the 
piece rapidity of movement and fill it with picturesqueness and 
passion. 

For the atmosphere out of which such poems evolved, one 
should read Scott's Peveril of the Peak. 

The title of the third poem was originally My Wife Gertrude. 
Compare Burns's Jacobite Songs and Tennyson's Bands all 
Bound and Eiflemen, Form. 

1. 1. Kentish. Kent revolted against Charles. 

2. Crop-headed. The Puritans wore the hair cut short as a 
protest against the frivolity of the Cavaliers with their long 
curls, "love knots," as the Puritans called them. 

7, 14. Pym and Hampden. The most eminent leaders of the 



112 Notes [Pages 11-16 

Puritans against Charles I. The former was one of the noblest 
types of Puritan. 

15. Hazelrig, Fiennes. Leading members of Parliament. The 
former Charles tried to impeach. Young Harry. Son of 8ir 
Henry Vane. Cf. Milton's Sonnet : To Sir Henry Vane. 

10. Eupert. Prince Rupert, who led the Cavaliers from Not- 
tingham to their defeat at Naseby. 

28. Nottingham. This old castle here was considered the key 
to the Midlands. Here Charles unfurled his standard and 
mustered his troops in 1642. 

II. 10. Noll, A nickname for Oliver Cromwell. 

III. 10. Brancepeth. About five miles from Durham. It 
was the ancient seat of the Nevilles. 



INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 

184-2 

(The original title was Camp.) 

The events of this poem were associated with the siege of 
the ancient city of Ratisbon, in Bavaria, situated on the 
Danube. In 1809 Napoleon stormed and took the town. The 
blending of the lyrical element in the young soldier's nature — 
his delight in serving the Emperor — with the dramatic situa- 
tion — the silent, brooding, anxious Napoleon — the Napoleon 
of so many portraits — renders the ballad vivid, picturesque, 
tragic. Browning's expression is most luminous when his 
passion is the deepest; hence it is in dealing with the feelings 
of men and women, rather than with their intricate thinking, 
that he is master of poetic expression. 



Pages 17-31] NoteS 113 

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 

1842 

This child's poem, from one of the old legends of cheating 
magicians, full of fancy and moving melody, was written and 
inscribed to a little son of the actor, William Macready, who 
was confined to the house by illness. The lad had some talent 
for drawing, and Browning had previously written a poem for 
him to illustrate, founded on the death of the Pope's legate at 
the Council of Trent. This poem was never printed, but the 
boy made such clever drawings for it, the poet wrote The Pied 
Piper. "The daintiest bit of folklore in English verse," says 
Mr. E. C. Stedman. It carried Browning's name into myriads 
of homes in England and America. 

1. Hamelin. An old town in Brunswick. 

89. Cham. Title of the rulers of Tartary. 

91. Nizam. Title of the rulers of one of the states of India. 
179. Caliph. Title of the successor of Mohammed. 



^^HOW THEY BKOUGHT THE GOOD NEWS 
FROM GHENT TO AIX" 

1845 
In 1843 Series IV and V of Bells and Pomegranates were pub- 
lished; the former a tragedy, The Return of the Drtises ; and the 
latter a tragedy. Blot in the 'Scutcheon. Mrs. Orr says that in 
1844 he visited Italy, and on his return journey stopped at 
Leghorn with the purpose of meeting E. J. Trclawney, who 

8 



114 Notes [Pages 31-34 

had known Byron and was the last man to see Shelley alive. 
In 1844 Series VI, a drama, Colombes Birthday^ was issued; and 
in 1845 Series VII, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics. This series 
contained twenty-five poems in which the poet is seen ascending 
the heiglits — his Mount of Vision. 

It was during the year 1845 that he met for the first time 
Miss Elizabeth Barrett, the gifted poet, who was living at 
Wimpole Street, London. She was living an invalid life, and 
in grief at the death of a favorite brother. For a revelation of 
the new life which thus came to two souls, one should read 
Letters of Robert Broioning and. Elizabeth Barrett. Visits were fre- 
quent, and discussions were held on the nature of poetry and 
the arts; often he left his manuscript for her correction, 
while he took away one of hers for review. She longed to 
go to a milder climate for her health, but the imperious will 
of the father prevented. "He came and prayed over her," 
says Mr. Chesterton, "with a kind of melancholy glee, and 
with the avowed solemnity of a watcher by a deathbed." 
Yet, in spite of all this paternal cruelty, she did not lose 
courage; her love of her art saved her for the love of a 
personal embodiment of that art, and she continued to write 
the cleverest poetry yet produced by an Englishwoman. 

Miss Barrett had already written of Bells and Pomegranates : 

Or from Browning some " Pomegranate " which, if cut 

deep down the middle, 
Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity. 

And it was for the volume of 1845 she had the greatest 
admiration. 

This spirited poem, which has no historical foundation, was 
conceived by Browning on his first visit to Italy in 1838, "and 



Pagks 34-35] Notes 115 

written on shipboard off the African coast," says Professor 
Dowden, "when the fancy of a gallop ' on the back of a cer- 
tain good horse York,' which he often rode at Hatcham, sud- 
denly presented itself in pleasant contrast to the tedium of 
hours on shipboard." It was written on the fly-leaf of Bartoli's 
Simhali. 

THE LOST LEADER 

1845 

While this poem has been considered as a direct thrust at 
Wordsworth for the conservatism of his later life, yet it was 
intended to reveal rather a type than any particular character, 
as Browning himself confessed. He says : " I did in my hasty 
youth presume to use the great and venerated personality of 
Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model, one from which this 
or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to 
account: had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as 
portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about 
' handfuls of silver and bits of riband.' These never influenced 
the change of politics in tlie great poet." 

Browning himself became more conservative and tolerant 
later in life, for he once said of the English county gentleman, 
" Talk of abolishing that class of men! They are the salt of 
the earth! " 

The late Senator Hoar wrote of the sentiments of the poem 
as follows: " I would not speak without reverence of the great 
genius of Browning, or of the gentle Shelley without a pitying 
love. . . . I am speaking only of their relation to righteousness 
and liberty as wrought out in the conduct of states. I am 
speaking of the history of England for a hundred years. What 



116 Notes [Pages 35-39 

did they do for it ? What accomplishment for humanity have 
they to show outside their place in literature ? What great 
moral battlefield, what great victory, did they win ? What are 
the deeds these great men did while Wordsworth 'boasts his 
quiescence ' ? I am speaking solely of political achievements. 
What great leader in the battle of freedom points for in- 
spiration to Robert Browning or Shelley ? . . . The name that 
Browning would blot out shines like a constellation in the 
sky. The ' lost soul ' of Wordsworth, as he said of Milton's, 

was 

Like a star and dwelt apart, 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free." 



HOME THOUGHTS, FEOM ABEOAD 
1845 

(As first printed, this title included three poems, Oh to he 
in England ; Here 's to Nelson's Memory ; and Nohly Cajie Saint 
Vincent. ) 

This poem and the one which follows it were bits from 
Browning's experience when abroad in 1838, and reveal almost 
the only note typically English to be found in his works. 
Everywhere in Tennyson the note is personal, English, of the 
country to which he belonged. His scenery, men and women, 
social and political ideas, are thoroughly English. Words- 
worth's sympathies and ideals are universal, they "span the 
total of liuiuaiiity," and yet the atmosphere which prevadcs his 
work is 'English. Altliough at heart a true Englishman, de- 
lighting in England's natural charms and proud of her power 
and influence, Browning is in no sense a historian of English 
life and its ideals. 



Pages 40-45] NoteS 117 

THE BOY AND THE ANGEL 

1845 

(First printed in Hood's Magazine, August, 1844.) 
In this simple legend, breathing the atmosphere of Catholic 
Europe, Browning has enshrined the most moving truth of 
the Christian religion: that human praise emanating from the 
soul joyous in its simple work is more pleasing to the Lord 
than that which often clothes itself in the garments of formal 
religious worship. Religion in our Western world tends to be- 
come more intellectual, and expresses its principles in theo- 
logical formulae; it therefore has no place for the child. 
" Formalism," says Bishop Brooks, "comes from the sheer loss 
of the poetic sense. When Christianity returns to its normal 
condition it will be a children's religion." 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
What souls possess themselves so pure, 
Or is their blessedness like theirs ? 

In Memoriam, xxxii. 



EVELYN HOPE 

1855 

In 1846 series VIH, the last of Bells and Pomegranates, Luria, 
and A Soul's Tragedy was published. Miss Barrett now began 
to o-row stronger, to take drives and even walks. " Something 
like a miracle of the healing of the sick," says Professor 



118 Notes [Pages 45-47 

Dowden, "had been effected." Longer resistance to the 
natural gravitation of the two toward each other was impos- 
sible. In March they were engaged, and planned marriage 
in the late summer, with a visit to Italy. But the opportune 
moment did not come until the Barretts planned to go to 
Tunbridge; it was then decided they must act. He wrote on 
September 10th, " We must be 7jia?'nec? directly di^nd go to Italy- 
I will go for a license to-day and we can be married on Satur- 
day. I will call to-morrow at three and arrange everything 
with you." On the 11th she wrote: "But come to-morrow, 
come. Almost everybody is to be away at Richmond, at a 
picnic, and we shall be free on all sides." A license was pro- 
cured, and on September r2th they were privately married at 
Marylebone church, being attended by only two witnesses and 
Miss Barrett's maid, not even their most intimate friends 
knowing of the act. After the marriage ceremony they parted. 
Mrs. Browning drove to the house of a friend, where she made 
the event known to her sisters and then returned home. On 
" Sept. 12 — 4| P.M.," she wrote: " I write a word that you may 
read it and know how all is safe so far, and that I am not slain 
downright with the day. Oh, such a day ! " For the next week 
there was much letter writing in preparation for their flight, and 
on the eve of the day before she left home she wrote (it is the last 
of the published Ze^ters) : " It is dreadful . . . dreadful ... to 
have to give pain here by a voluntary act — for the first time 
in ray life." On the 19th she quietly left Wimpole Street 
forever, taking with her Flush, her pet dog, and her maid. 
She said to Flush, "O Flush, if you make a noise, I am lost." 
She met her husband at a stationer's shop, and they were soon 
on their way to Havre, completing thus the most romantic first 
act in the lives of two poets. Mr. Barrett, after the marriage, 



Pages 45-47] NoteS ll9 

said: " I 've no objection to the young man, but my daughter 
should have been thinking of another world." 

They remained m Paris two weeks, and then, in company 
with Mrs. Jameson, set out for Italy. Mrs. Jameson wrote to 
a friend at the time as follows: "Both excellent; but God 
help them ! for I know not how the two poet heads and poet 
hearts will get on through this prosaic world." 

They travelled slowly, owing to Mrs. Browning's health, and 
decided to spend the winter in Pisa. Of the life here, Mrs. 
Browning wrote, "I never was so happy before." Their 
housekeeping was as plain as their thinking was high. "Their 
custom was," says Mr. Edmund Gosse, "to write alone, and 
not to show each other what they had written. This was a 
rule which he sometimes broke, but she never. He worked in 
a room down stairs, where their meals were served; she in a 
room on the floor above. One day early in 1847, their break- 
fast being over, Mrs. Browning went upstairs, while her hus- 
band stood at the window watching the street till the table 
should be cleared. He was presently aware of some one behind 
him, although the servant w^as gone. It was Mrs. Browning, 
who held him by the shoulder to prevent his turning to look 
at her, and at the same time pushed a packet of papers, the 
very notes and chronicle of her betrothal, into the pocket of 
his coat, and then she fled again to her own room." The par- 
cel contained the Sonnets from the Portuguese which have now 
made her name so famous because they reveal her highest 
imaginative flights, her keenest emotions, and her subtlest 
technical skill, as illustrated in the following: 
I lived with visions for my company 
Instead of men and women, years ago, 
And found them gentle mates, nor thought to know 



120 Notes [Pages 45-47 

A sweeter music than they pla3'ed to me. 

But soon their trailing purple was not free 

Of this world's dust, — their lutes did silent grow, 

And I myself grew faint and blind below 

Their vanishing eyes. Then thou didst come, ... to be, 

Beloved, what they seemed. Their shining fronts, 

Their songs, their splendours . . . (better, yet the same, . . . 

As river water hallowed into fonts . . .) 

Met in thee, and from out thee overcame 

My soul with satisfaction of all wants — 

Because God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame. 

In April they went to Florence, first living in an apartment 
at Yia delle Belle Donne and later in the Palazzo Guidi, the 
Casa Guidi of Mrs. Browning's poems. " We are as happy," 
wrote Browning, " as two owls in a hole, two toads under a 
tree-stump, or any other queer two poking creatures that we 
let live after the fashion of their black hearts, only Ba [his 
wife] is fat and rosy; yes, indeed! " In this year the memor- 
able friendship with the American sculptor, W. W- Story, be- 
gan. During the next two years he was busy preparing for 
the press an edition of his poems, and Christinas Eve and 
Easter Day, and she was at work upon A urora Leigh. In March, 
1849, a son was born to them. "A lovely, fat, strong child, 
with double chin and rosy cheeks, and a great wide chest," is 
the mother's description of him. But the joy of the event was 
soon colored with sorrow at the death of Browning's mother. 

In 1850 Christmas Eve and Easter Day was published, and 
Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. " I dared not 
reserve for myself," said Browning, " the finest sonnets written 
in any language since Shakespeare's." It was natural that 
these years should be fruitful ones. He wrote an essay on his 



Pages 45-47] Notes 121 

young ideal, Shelley, his only significant prose work. In 1851 
they returned to London, and the circle of friends was widened ; 
hut the climate did not suit Mrs. Browning, and they went to 
Rome. In 1853 Story wrote Lowell from the baths of Lucca: 
" Of society there is none we care to meet but the Brownings, 
who are living here. With them we have constant and de- 
lightful intercourse. They are so simple, unaffected, and 
sympathetic." 

Mrs. Browning writes: "You know Mr. and Mrs. Story. 
She and I go backward and forward to tea, drinking and gos- 
siping at one another's houses, and our husbands hold the 
reins." They returned to Florence in May, 1853. Plans were 
now made for the publication of Men and JFomen, in two 
volumes, and two volumes of Mrs. Browning's; this necessi- 
tated their going to London to superintend the work. 

In Evelyn Hope the passion has become by the death of its 
object a spiritual longing for its realization in the next world. 
The poem is as fresh and wholesome as Wordsworth's Lzicy 
Poems, Burns' s To Mary in Heaven Si.nd Prayer for Mary, or Lan- 
dor's Rose Aybner; it appeals to all classes, because free from 
the atmosphere of the laboratory on the one hand and of the 
cloister on the other. Here, assuredly, Browning agrees with 
the greatest poetic artists that 

Song 's our art. 

"Not the saintly ascetic," says Mr. C. H. Herford, "nor 
the doer of good works, but the artist and lover dominated his 
imagination." Cf. Wordsworth, Highland Giri^ for a contrast 
in treatment of love. 



122 Notes [Pages 48-54 

UP AT A VILLA — DOWN IN THE CITY 
1855 

This picture is full of that subtle play of humor which is 
Browning's best. Its revelations are true to much of the life 
of a large class of the present day, — a class of men and women 
who have no resources within themselves, and who when alone 
with books and nature are most miserable. Their nerves are 
worn so bare that rest is pain ; activity in the busy crowd is 
their only recreation. 

42. Pulcinello. Italian for clown. 

49. Has nearly equalled St. Paul. 

52. Seven swords. Alluding to " the seven sorrows of Our 
Lady." Browning uses this symbol amid the gayety of dress 
to reveal peculiarities of the people. 

56. Oil pays. Town dues have to be paid on all provisions 
entering cities of Italy. 

60. Yellow caudles. Used at funerals and penitential rites. 

MY STAK 

1855 

This poem might be styled " Any Husband to any Wife," in 

its revelation of 

The gleam, 
The light that never was, on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream. 

It is without doubt Browning's tribute to his wife. Cf. 
Wordsworth, She was a Phantom of Delight. 



Page 55] NoteS 123 



MEMORABILIA 

1855 

" Composed," says Dr. Berdoe, "in the Roman Campagna in 
the winter of 1853-5'4." 

This poem originated in the fact that when on one occasion 
Browning was in a London bookstore, he overheard a stranger 
say that he had seen and spoken to Shelley. Years after this 
Browning wrote: " I have not yet forgotten how strangely the 
sight of one who had spoken with Shelley affected me." 

It is one of the few poems in which Browning lays aside his 
dramatic masque and speaks in propria persona. The memory 
of his first discovery of Shelley while crossing a tract of life 
otherwise uninteresting, gives the time and place distinction 
by suggesting, as did the eagle's feather, that there are men who, 
while they inhabit the upper regions, at times drop celestial 
plumage in the path of ordinary mortals. 

Browning's youthful enthusiasm for Shelley is revealed in 
the following, from Pauline : 

Sun-treader, life and light be thine forever! 
Thou art gone from us ; years go by and spring 
Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, 
Yet thy songs come not, other bards arise. 
But none like thee: they stand, thy majesties, 
Like mighty works which tell some spirit there 
Hath sat regardless of neglect and scorn, 
Till, its long task completed, it hath risen 
And left us, never to return, and all 
Rush in to peer and praise when all in vain. 



124 Notes [Pages 55-65 

What Browning's idea of Shelley was in 1885 is seen in a 
letter which he wrote to Dr. Furnivall, quoted by Professor 
Dowden : " For myself I painfully contrast my notions of 
Shelley the man and Shelley, well, even the poet, with what 
they were sixty years ago." 



ONE WORD MOEE 
1855 

This epilogue to his " fifty men and women " is Browning's 
EpUhalamiuniy — his expression of joy, peace, and high en- 
deavor which his marriage brought him. It should be read 
with the similar revelations of domestic happiness of his two 
great contemporaries, Wordsworth and Tennyson, who owed 
quite as much of their success as poets to noble women as 
did Browning, albeit in a different way. They all reveal the 
power of the woman of their love to keep them true to a 
high ideal of art and life. See Wordsworth, "O dearer far 
than light and life are dear," and Tennyson, " Dear, near and 
true, no truer time itself," etc. 

22. San Sisto. In Dresden. Foligno. In the Vatican. 

2.S. In the Pitti Palace. 

57. Bice. Beatrice 

58. Picture. By Giotto. 

130-139. Titles of poems in Men and Women. 



Pages 66-67] NotsS 125 



PROSPICE 

1864 

First appeared in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1864. 

(The original title was James Lee.) 

Before Men and JVomcn i^iied from the press in the fall of 
1855, the Brownings went to Paris and spent the winter there. 
They returned to London in June, 1856, because of their 
anxiety for the health of their friend, John Kenyon. In the 
autumn they went to Florence. 

It was in 1858 that Hawthorne and other Americans became 
acquainted with the Brownings, and it is from them that we 
get some of the most interesting and valuable information of 
their life in Florence. 

Mr. William Sharp says: "It is, strangely enough, from 
Americans that we have the best accounts of the Brownings in 
their life at Casa Guidi. From R. H. Stoddard, Bayard Taylor, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Stillman Hillard, and W. W. 
Story." In this year they spent some time in Paris, where 
Browning's father was living. On returning to Florence the 
winter was found to be too severe for Mrs. Browning, and they 
went to Rome. From this time until 1861 they lived either 
in Rome or in Florence. Browning was now modelling in clay 
in the studio of his friend Story, but no diversion could drive 
away the feeling of anxiety for his wife's health. Suffering 
from a bronchial attack not considered serious, early in the 
morning of June 29, 1861, " while talking, jesting, and giving 
expression to her love in tenderest moods," says W. W. Story, 
she passed from him, at Casa Guidi. She was buried in the 



126 Notes [Pages 66-67 

Protestant Cemetery at Forence, where now stands the beauti- 
ful memorial of her designed by Lord Leighton. 

The municipality of Florence placed a tablet in the walls of 
Casa Guidi with the following from the poet Tommaseo: 

Here lived and died Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 
Who in her woman's heart reconciled the science of 
Learning with the spirit of poetry, and made of her 
Verse a golden ring between Italy and England. 

Grateful Florence places this tablet. 1861. 

Browning's nature was a strong one, but the loss of such 
associations as had glorified his life and art was well-nigh in- 
supportable. " I shall grow still, I hope," he said, "but my 
root is taken." Special help came to him at this time from a 
generous and gifted American lady, Mrs. Blagden, who had 
been a friend of the family in Florence. He soon went to 
London, chiefly in order to give his son an English education. 
In his home at Warwick Crescent he lived in retirement and 
loneliness save for an occasional vacation in the Pyrenees or in 
Brittany, although hard at work on a new volume of his 
poems. Early in 1863 he abandoned his habit of seclusion, 
as being "morbid and unworthy," as Mr. Gosse says, "and 
began to seek recreation at dining-table, concert-hall, and places 
of refined entertainment," as means of escape for his restless 
energy. In 1864 the new volume, Dramatis Personce, eighteen 
poems, was published. 

Prospice, like One Word 3Iore, is full of revelations of the 
poet's personal love. It M^as written in the autumn following 
her death, and reveals his heroic determination, through the 
memory of her love, to meet and conquer all the enemies of 
faith and hope in personal immortality. It is a trumpet-call 



Pages 67-70] Notes ' 127 

to all who are wavering. It is as characteristic of Browning 
as Grossing the Bar is of Tennyson, and Afterthought, of 
Wordsworth. 

Third Period, 1868-1889 

THE EING AND THE BOOK 

1868-9 
O Lyric Love 

Between 1865 and 1876 Browning lived in London, but made 
frequent visits to France, Normandy, and Scotland. The loss 
of his father, and of his sister-in-law, Miss Arabella Barrett, 
bore heavily upon him. Honor came to him from an increas- 
ing number of readers of his poetry. As so many were young 
men of Oxford and Cambridge, he wrote: "All my new culti- 
vators are young men." He was made honorary Fellowof 
Balliol through his friendship with the great teacher Benjamin 
Jowett. 

This exquisite lyric is the posy to the ring in The Ring and 
the Book. It is a cry from the depths of his passionate heart to 
the gentle soul which had passed on to become his better angel. 
Thought and feeling become united in a noble elegy, pro- 
found, and subtle, yet sweet and moving with its solemn 
music. 

HERVE EIEL 

1876 

After the death of Mrs. Blagden, in 1872, Miss Ann Egerton- 
Smith, a woman of wealth and refinement, whom he had 



128 Notes [Pages 70-79 

known in Florence, became an inmate of his home and 
an influence in his life. 

Herv6 Rid was written during Browning's visit to Le Croisic, 
a little town in Brittany, in 1867. It was first printed in the 
Cornhill Magazine in 1871, and the proceeds (£100) sent to 
the people of Paris, who were suffering from the results of 
the Franco-Prussian war. The facts regarding the Breton 
sailor as given by the poet are essentially historical, but 
had been forgotten until this poem recalled them. Records 
show that tlie holiday was for life. It is significant of the 
poet's sympathies that this dashing ballad of the sea, heroic 
in devotion to home and fatherland, should be in every detail 
of thought and feeling instinct with the soul of a Breton 
sailor from Le Croisic. For a similar type of English sailors' 
heroism see Tennyson's Ileveiitjc. 

1. Hogue. The naval battle of La Hogue in 1692, on the 
rocky Norman coast, crushed the attempts of the P'rench 
Jacobites to restore James II to the English throne. 

5. Saint Malo. On northern coast of P'rance. 

30. Plymouth Sound. On the coast of Cornwall and Devon. 

43. Tourville. Commander of the French fleet. 

44. Croisickese. A native of Le Croisic. 
46. Malouins. Inhabitants of Malo. 



PHEIDIPPIDES 

1879 

In 1872 Browning dedicated a volume of his poems "To 
Alfred Tennyson. In poetry illustrious and consummate; in 
friendship noble and sincere." In the preface to that volume 



Page 79] Notes 129 

he paid his compliments to those who had complained that 
he was obscure, saying, " Nor do I apprehend any more 
charges of being wilfully obscure, unconsciously careless, or 
perversely harsh." About this time he wrote to a friend: "I 
can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too 
hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate 
with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some 
of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pre- 
tended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a 
cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on 
the whole, I get my deserts and something over, — not a crowd, 
but a few I value more." 

After the death of his wife, Browning did not return to Italy 
until the fall of 1878, from which time until his death he spent 
a part of each year at Venice or Asolo. 

In 1879 Browning published the first series of Dramatic Idyls. 
While he is interested mainly in the Epic of Thought, which 
yields a philosophy of life, he often has the genuine Homeric 
delight in the Epic of Action, which attracts us by pictures of 
noble personalities. In Herve' Fuel and Pheidippides, heroic 
idyls of different times and nations, he touches those feelings 
which respond to the folk-lore of all peoples. lie gives us the 
riches of ballad literature, — a natural, as contrasted with a 
literary poetry. 

This idyl of heroic devotion is based on Greek legendary 
history as given by Herodotus (Book VI) and others. It falls 
naturally into three parts. The first reveals how the Athenian 
athlete Pheidippides ran two days and two nights to reach 
Sparta and implore herald against the Persians; the second 
introduces Miltiades, asking what reward Pan promised him; 
the third, revealing the pathos and power of the old story, 

9 



130 Notes [Pages 79-90 

shows how the youth fought at Marathon. This is another 
ilhistration of Browning's " apparent failure " which is highest 
success; in this respect Browning's narrative ballads differ 
from the old folk-ballads, which never reach a climax of pas- 
sion; the feeling is distributed throughout. Cf. Mrs. Brown- 
ing's The Dead Pan. 

Mrs. Orr calls attention to the metre here, which the poet 
created as specially fit for such a poem. 

Xatperc viKcoficv. Rejoice, we conquer ! 

4, 5. Her. Minerva. Ye. Diana. 

8. Pan. The goat god, the pasturer, the god of the shepherds. 

9. Tettix. The Athenians wore the golden grasshopper in 
the hair. 

Patron goddess of Athens. 
Apollo. Artemis. Diana. 
Sacrificial. 

Used in making the wreaths for victors. 
A mountain above Tegea, now called Ozia. 
Lower world. 

105. Marathon day. B. C. Sept. 490. Patriots' Day of 
Greece, as it saved her from the Persians. 

109. Fennel-field. The Greek for fennel was 6 Mapadpwv 
(Marathon). In this lies the significance of Pan's gift to 
Pheidippides. 



MULEYKEH 

1880 

In 1880 Browning made the acquaintance of an American 
lady, Mrs. Arthur Bronson, who was living at Asolo. Through 



31. 


Athene. 


32. 


Phoibos. 


47. 


Filleted. 


49. 


Oak, etc. 


52. 


Parnes. 


62. 


Erebos. 



Pages 90-100] NoteS 131 

her generous hospitality and ready sympathy, she hecame 
associated with the remaining years of his life. In this year 
he published the second series of Dramatic Idyls. 

In Mideijkeh, a pathetic idyl of the East, Browning makes 
central a characteristic feature of oriental character, — the 
affection of man for his noble associate, the horse. Hoseyn, 
who was despised for his poverty, had a beautiful horse, the 
envy of Duhl, who sought to get possession of her, — by fair 
means at first, — and at last by foul, in which he succeeds, 
thus giving the romance to the story, as it is told by Browning, 
the race and its results. Such a poem as this, full of action 
and passion, would seem naturally to belong to the period of 
youth rather than to that of age. Here Browning reveals his 
power "to recapture the first fine careless rapture." The 
pathetic close, as Professor Dowden says, "shows that to per- 
fect love, pride in the supremacy of the beloved is more than 
possession." 

Cf. Kipling's The Ballad of East and West for one element of 
this poem and Wordsworth's Hart Leap Well for the other. 



EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO 

1889 

From 1884 to 1889 Browning's life was quiet and uneventful, 
although full of interest; there was little searching, but nmch 
rest and peace in the enjoyment of those truths of the heart 
which, once wakened, perish never. There was a sweetness 
and graciousness in his old age born of serenity and the assur- 



132 Notes [Pages 100-101 

ance that he had attained, not to the very things for which he 
had sought, but to something infinitely higher, that 

Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, 
We feel that we are greater than we knew. 

"Love, honor, troops of friends," came to him, and he ac- 
knowledged them all with a full heart. 

He spent a part of almost every year in travel, mostly in 
Italy, and when in 1885 his son visited there, for the first time 
since childhood, he thought of securing a haven of rest from 
the storms of age, and negotiated for the Palazzo Manzoni, 
which he considered the loveliest house in Venice. When the 
bargain was about to be closed, he found to his great disap- 
pointment that the foundations were not sound, and the 
cherished hope had to be abandoned. 

In 1887 he published a volume, ParJeyings with Certain 
People, which revealed that he still loved the intellectual 
gymnastics of his middle life. While the subjects are varied, 
only here and there is to be found the fascinating lyrical cry, 
or any descriptive beauty, and it is evident, as Mr. Stopford 
Brooke says, that " imagination such as belongs to a poet has 
deserted Browning." 

It was in this year that he changed his London residence 
from Warwick Crescent to De Vere Gardens. In Italy he and 
his sister were guests of Mrs. Bronson in Venice. In 1888 his 
son, soon after his marriage, acquired the Palazzo Rezzonico, 
on the Grand Canal, and there he found a "corner for his old 
age." In the spring of 1889 he was in England, but returned 
to Italy in July. He was delighted to visit Asolo, fragrant 
with the memory of Pippa's songs, and said to Mrs. Bronson: 
" I was right to fall in love with the place iif'y years ago, was 



Pages 100-101] Notes 133 

I not? " He even planned to purchase a house there, where 
he might spend his summers, enjoying the life with nature. 
"It shall have a tower," he said, "whence I can see Venice at 
every hour of the day, and I shall call it Pippa's Tower." On 
his return to Venice in November, full of plans for the future, 
he began to have some discomfort from shortness of breath, 
which interfered with vigorous exercise; and, having taken 
cold, physicians perceived the gravity of the situation. He had 
already arranged for a new volume of his poems, Asolando, to 
be brought out in England, and on the evening of December 12, 
as he lay in bed, he heard the great bell of San Marco strike 
ten and asked if there were any news of the volume. His son 
read him a telegram telling that it was that day published, and 
of the great prospects of its sale. The aged poet smiled and 
said, " How gratifying! " and passed away. 

A private service was held in the Palazzo Rezzonico. Then 
the body was taken to Be Vere Gardens; and on the last 
day of the year, amid a throng of mourners of all classes, to 
the music of Mrs. Browning's "He giveth his beloved sleep," 
it was laid at rest in Westminster Abbey. 

The city of Venice affixed a memorial tablet to the Rezzonico 
Palace with the following inscription : 

A 

ROBERTO BROWNING 

MORTO EN QUESTO PALAZZO 

n 12 Dicembre 1889 
VENEZIE 

POSE 

"Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside it, ' Italy.' " 



134 Notes [Pages 100-101 

Asolo also placed a tablet on the house which Browning had 
occupied there. 

Asolando was dedicated "To Mrs. Arthur Bronson. To 
whom but you, dear Friend, should I dedicate verses — some 
few written, all of them supervised, in the comfort of your 
presence." 

The volume reveals the sights and sounds, the joyous 
reveries and noble emotions, his vespers on that evening of 
Extraordinary Beauty and Splendor — his closing years. 

But 't is endued with power to stay, 
And sanctify one closing day, 
That frail mortality may see — 
What is ? — ah no, but what can be. 



REFERENCES 

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL 



Alexander, W. J. Introduction to the Poetry of Robert 
Browning. 

Berdoe, E. Browning's Message to his Time. 

BiRKELL, A. Essays and Addresses. Robert Browning. 

Obiter Dicta. First Series. On the Alleged Obscurity of 

Mr. Browning's Poetry. 

Browxing, R., and Elizabeth Barrett. Letters. 

Browning Society Papers. Boston. 

Burt, M. E. Browning's Women. 

Chesterton, G. K. Robert Browning. (English Men of 
Letters.) 

Cooke, G W. Poets and Problems. 

Dawson, W. J. Makers of Modern English. Robert Brown- 
ing. 

DowDEN, E. Studies in Literature. Mr. Browning and Mr. 
Tennyson. 

Robert Browning. 

Hawthorne, N. Italian Note Books. 

Herford, C. H. Robert Browning. (Modern Writers.) 

Hutton, R. H. Literary Essays. Mr. Browning. 

James, H. William Wetmore Story and his Friends. 

Jones, H. Browning as a Religious and Philosophical 
Teacher. 



136 References, Biographical and Critical 

Orr, Mrs. S. Handbook to Robert Browning's Works. 

Robert Browning, Life and Letters. 

Ritchie, Mrs. Anne Thackeray. Records of Tennyson, 

Ruskin, and Browning. 
Sharp, W. Robert Browning. (Great Writers Series.) 
Stedman, E. C. Victorian Poets. 
Stephen, L. Studies of a Biographer. Vol. Ill The 

Browning Letters. 
Story, W. W. Conversations in a Studio. 
Symons, a. Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning. 



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